For years, normality has been stretched nearly to its breaking point, a rope pulled tighter and tighter, waiting for a nip of the black swan’s beak to snap it in two. Now that the rope has snapped, do we tie its ends back together, or shall we undo its dangling braids still further, to see what we might weave from them?
Covid-19 is showing us that when humanity is united in common cause, phenomenally rapid change is possible. None of the world’s problems are technically difficult to solve; they originate in human disagreement. In coherency, humanity’s creative powers are boundless. A few months ago, a proposal to halt commercial air travel would have seemed preposterous. Likewise for the radical changes we are making in our social behavior, economy, and the role of government in our lives. Covid demonstrates the power of our collective will when we agree on what is important. What else might we achieve, in coherency? What do we want to achieve, and what world shall we create? That is always the next question when anyone awakens to their power.
Covid-19 is like a rehab intervention that breaks the addictive hold of normality. To interrupt a habit is to make it visible; it is to turn it from a compulsion to a choice. When the crisis subsides, we might have occasion to ask whether we want to return to normal, or whether there might be something we’ve seen during this break in the routines that we want to bring into the future. We might ask, after so many have lost their jobs, whether all of them are the jobs the world most needs, and whether our labor and creativity would be better applied elsewhere. We might ask, having done without it for a while, whether we really need so much air travel, Disneyworld vacations, or trade shows. What parts of the economy will we want to restore, and what parts might we choose to let go of? Covid has interrupted what looked to be like a military regime-change operation in Venezuela – perhaps imperialist wars are also one of those things we might relinquish in a future of global cooperation. And on a darker note, what among the things that are being taken away right now – civil liberties, freedom of assembly, sovereignty over our bodies, in-person gatherings, hugs, handshakes, and public life – might we need to exert intentional political and personal will to restore?
For most of my life, I have had the feeling that humanity was nearing a crossroads. Always, the crisis, the collapse, the break was imminent, just around the bend, but it didn’t come and it didn’t come. Imagine walking a road, and up ahead you see it, you see the crossroads. It’s just over the hill, around the bend, past the woods. Cresting the hill, you see you were mistaken, it was a mirage, it was farther away than you thought. You keep walking. Sometimes it comes into view, sometimes it disappears from sight and it seems like this road goes on forever. Maybe there isn’t a crossroads. No, there it is again! Always it is almost here. Never is it here.
Now, all of a sudden, we go around a bend and here it is. We stop, hardly able to believe that now it is happening, hardly able to believe, after years of confinement to the road of our predecessors, that now we finally have a choice. We are right to stop, stunned at the newness of our situation. Of the hundred paths that radiate out in front of us, some lead in the same direction we’ve already been headed. Some lead to hell on earth. And some lead to a world more healed and more beautiful than we ever dared believe to be possible.
I write these words with the aim of standing here with you – bewildered, scared maybe, yet also with a sense of new possibility – at this point of diverging paths. Let us gaze down some of them and see where they lead.
* * *
I heard this story last week from a friend. She was in a grocery store and saw a woman sobbing in the aisle. Flouting social distancing rules, she went to the woman and gave her a hug. “Thank you,” the woman said, “that is the first time anyone has hugged me for ten days.”
Going without hugs for a few weeks seems a small price to pay if it will stem an epidemic that could take millions of lives. Initially, the argument for social distancing was that it would save millions of lives by preventing a sudden surge of Covid cases from overwhelming the medical system. Now the authorities tell us that some social distancing may need to continue indefinitely, at least until there is an effective vaccine. I would like to put that argument in a larger context, especially as we look to the long term. Lest we institutionalize distancing and reengineer society around it, let us be aware of what choice we are making and why.
The same goes for the other changes happening around the coronavirus epidemic. Some commentators have observed how it plays neatly into an agenda of totalitarian control. A frightened public accepts abridgments of civil liberties that are otherwise hard to justify, such as the tracking of everyone’s movements at all times, forcible medical treatment, involuntary quarantine, restrictions on travel and the freedom of assembly, censorship of what the authorities deem to be disinformation, suspension of habeas corpus, and military policing of civilians. Many of these were underway before Covid-19; since its advent, they have been irresistible. The same goes for the automation of commerce; the transition from participation in sports and entertainment to remote viewing; the migration of life from public to private spaces; the transition away from place-based schools toward online education, the destruction of small business, the decline of brick-and-mortar stores, and the movement of human work and leisure onto screens. Covid-19 is accelerating preexisting trends, political, economic, and social.
While all the above are, in the short term, justified on the grounds of flattening the curve (the epidemiological growth curve), we are also hearing a lot about a “new normal”; that is to say, the changes may not be temporary at all. Since the threat of infectious disease, like the threat of terrorism, never goes away, control measures can easily become permanent. If we were going in this direction anyway, the current justification must be part of a deeper impulse. I will analyze this impulse in two parts: the reflex of control, and the war on death. Thus understood, an initiatory opportunity emerges, one that we are seeing already in the form of the solidarity, compassion, and care that Covid-19 has inspired.
The Reflex of Control
Nearing the end of April, official statistics say that about 150,000 people have died from Covid-19. By the time it runs its course, the death toll could be ten times or a hundred times bigger. Each one of these people has loved ones, family and friends. Compassion and conscience call us to do what we can to avert unnecessary tragedy. This is personal for me: my own infinitely dear but frail mother is among the most vulnerable to a disease that kills mostly the aged and the infirm.
What will the final numbers be? That question is impossible to answer at the time of this writing. Early reports were alarming; for weeks the official number from Wuhan, circulated endlessly in the media, was a shocking 3.4%. That, coupled with its highly contagious nature, pointed to tens of millions of deaths worldwide, or even as many as 100 million. More recently, estimates have plunged as it has become apparent that most cases are mild or asymptomatic. Since testing has been skewed towards the seriously ill, the death rate has looked artificially high. A recent paper in the journal Science argues that 86% of infections have been undocumented, which points to a much lower mortality rate than the current case fatality rate would indicate. A more recent paper goes even further, estimating total US infections at a hundred times current confirmed cases (which would mean a CFR of less than 0.1%). These papers involve a lot of fancy epidemiological guesswork, but a very recent study using an antibody test found that cases in Santa Clara, CA have been underreported by a factor of 50-85.
The story of the Diamond Princess cruise ship bolsters this view. Of the 3,711 people on board, about 20% have tested positive for the virus; less than half of those had symptoms, and eight have died. A cruise ship is a perfect setting for contagion, and there was plenty of time for the virus to spread on board before anyone did anything about it, yet only a fifth were infected. Furthermore, the cruise ship’s population was heavily skewed (as are most cruise ships) toward the elderly: nearly a third of the passengers were over age 70, and more than half were over age 60. A research team concluded from the large number of asymptomatic cases that the true fatality rate in China is around 0.5%; more recent data (see above) indicates a figure closer to 0.2%. That is still two to five times higher than seasonal flu. Based on the above (and adjusting for much younger demographics in Africa and South and Southeast Asia) my guess is about 200,000-300,000 deaths in the US and 2 million globally. Those are serious numbers, comparable to the Hong Kong Flu pandemic of 1968/9.
Every day the media reports the total number of Covid-19 cases, but no one has any idea what the true number is, because only a tiny proportion of the population has been tested. If tens of millions have the virus, asymptomatically, we would not know it. Further complicating the matter is that Covid-19 deaths may be overreported (in many hospitals, if someone dies with Covid they are recorded as having died from Covid) or underreported (some may have died at home). Let me repeat: no one knows what is really happening, including me. Let us be aware of two contradictory tendencies in human affairs. The first is the tendency for hysteria to feed on itself, to exclude data points that don’t play into the fear, and to create the world in its image. The second is denial, the irrational rejection of information that might disrupt normalcy and comfort. As Daniel Schmachtenberger asks, How do you know what you believe is true?
Cognitive biases such as these are especially virulent in an atmosphere of political polarization; for example, liberals will tend to reject any information that might be woven into a pro-Trump narrative, while conservatives will tend to embrace it.
In the face of the uncertainty, I’d like to make a prediction: The crisis will play out so that we never will know. If the final death tally, which will itself be the subject of dispute, is lower than feared, some will say that is because the controls worked. Others will say it is because the disease wasn’t as dangerous as we were told.
To me, the most baffling puzzle is why at the present writing there seem to be no new cases in China. The government didn’t initiate its lockdown until well after the virus was established. It should have spread widely during Chinese New Year, when, despite a few travel restrictions, nearly every plane, train, and bus is packed with people traveling all over the country. What is going on here? Again, I don’t know, and neither do you.
Whatever the final death toll, let’s look at some other numbers to get some perspective. My point is NOT that Covid isn’t so bad and we shouldn’t do anything. Bear with me. As of 2013, according to the FAO, five million children worldwide die every year of hunger; in 2018, 159 million children were stunted and 50 million were wasted. (Hunger was falling until recently, but has started to rise again in the last three years.) Five million is many times more people than have died so far from Covid-19, yet no government has declared a state of emergency or asked that we radically alter our way of life to save them. Nor do we see a comparable level of alarm and action around suicide – the mere tip of an iceberg of despair and depression – which kills over a million people a year globally and 50,000 in the USA. Or drug overdoses, which kill 70,000 in the USA, the autoimmunity epidemic, which affects 23.5 million (NIH figure) to 50 million (AARDA), or obesity, which afflicts well over 100 million. Why, for that matter, are we not in a frenzy about averting nuclear armageddon or ecological collapse, but, to the contrary, pursue choices that magnify those very dangers?
Please, the point here is not that we haven’t changed our ways to stop children from starving, so we shouldn’t change them for Covid either. It is the contrary: If we can change so radically for Covid-19, we can do it for these other conditions too. Let us ask why are we able to unify our collective will to stem this virus, but not to address other grave threats to humanity. Why, until now, has society been so frozen in its existing trajectory?
The answer is revealing. Simply, in the face of world hunger, addiction, autoimmunity, suicide, or ecological collapse, we as a society do not know what to do. That’s because there is nothing external against which to fight. Our go-to crisis responses, all of which are some version of control, aren’t very effective in addressing these conditions. Now along comes a contagious epidemic, and finally we can spring into action. It is a crisis for which control works: quarantines, lockdowns, isolation, hand-washing; control of movement, control of information, control of our bodies. That makes Covid a convenient receptacle for our inchoate fears, a place to channel our growing sense of helplessness in the face of the changes overtaking the world. Covid-19 is a threat that we know how to meet. Unlike so many of our other fears, Covid-19 offers a plan.
Our civilization’s established institutions are increasingly helpless to meet the challenges of our time. How they welcome a challenge that they finally can meet. How eager they are to embrace it as a paramount crisis. How naturally their systems of information management select for the most alarming portrayals of it. How easily the public joins the panic, embracing a threat that the authorities can handle as a proxy for the various unspeakable threats that they cannot.
Today, most of our challenges no longer succumb to force. Our antibiotics and surgery fail to meet the surging health crises of autoimmunity, addiction, and obesity. Our guns and bombs, built to conquer armies, are useless to erase hatred abroad or keep domestic violence out of our homes. Our police and prisons cannot heal the breeding conditions of crime. Our pesticides cannot restore ruined soil. Covid-19 recalls the good old days when the challenges of infectious diseases succumbed to modern medicine and hygiene, at the same time as the Nazis succumbed to the war machine, and nature itself succumbed, or so it seemed, to technological conquest and improvement. It recalls the days when our weapons worked and the world seemed indeed to be improving with each technology of control.
What kind of problem succumbs to domination and control? The kind caused by something from the outside, something Other. When the cause of the problem is something intimate to ourselves, like homelessness or inequality, addiction or obesity, there is nothing to war against. We may try to install an enemy, blaming, for example, the billionaires, Vladimir Putin, or the Devil, but then we miss key information, such as the ground conditions that allow billionaires (or viruses) to replicate in the first place.
If there is one thing our civilization is good at, it is fighting an enemy. We welcome opportunities to do what we are good at, which prove the validity of our technologies, systems, and worldview. And so, we manufacture enemies, cast problems like crime, terrorism, and disease into us-versus-them terms, and mobilize our collective energies toward those endeavors that can be seen that way. Thus, we single out Covid-19 as a call to arms, reorganizing society as if for a war effort, while treating as normal the possibility of nuclear armageddon, ecological collapse, and five million children starving.
The Conspiracy Narrative
Because Covid-19 seems to justify so many items on the totalitarian wish list, there are those who believe it to be a deliberate power play. It is not my purpose to advance that theory nor to debunk it, although I will offer some meta-level comments. First a brief overview.
The theories (there are many variants) talk about Event 201 (sponsored by the Gates Foundation, CIA, etc. last October), and a 2010 Rockefeller Foundation white paper detailing a scenario called “Lockstep,” both of which lay out the authoritarian response to a hypothetical pandemic. They observe that the infrastructure, technology, and legislative framework for martial law has been in preparation for many years. All that was needed, they say, was a way to make the public embrace it, and now that has come. Whether or not current controls are permanent, a precedent is being set for:
- The tracking of people’s movements at all times (because coronavirus)
- The suspension of freedom of assembly (because coronavirus)
- The military policing of civilians (because coronavirus)
- Extrajudicial, indefinite detention (quarantine, because coronavirus)
- The banning of cash (because coronavirus)
- Censorship of the Internet (to combat disinformation, because coronavirus)
- Compulsory vaccination and other medical treatment, establishing the state’s sovereignty over our bodies (because coronavirus)
- The classification of all activities and destinations into the expressly permitted and the expressly forbidden (you can leave your house for this, but not that), eliminating the un-policed, non-juridical gray zone. That totality is the very essence of totalitarianism. Necessary now though, because, well, coronavirus.
This is juicy material for conspiracy theories. For all I know, one of those theories could be true; however, the same progression of events could unfold from an unconscious systemic tilt toward ever-increasing control. Where does this tilt come from? It is woven into civilization’s DNA. For millennia, civilization (as opposed to small-scale traditional cultures) has understood progress as a matter of extending control onto the world: domesticating the wild, conquering the barbarians, mastering the forces of nature, and ordering society according to law and reason. The ascent of control accelerated with the Scientific Revolution, which launched “progress” to new heights: the ordering of reality into objective categories and quantities, and the mastering of materiality with technology. Finally, the social sciences promised to use the same means and methods to fulfill the ambition (which goes back to Plato and Confucius) to engineer a perfect society.
Those who administer civilization will therefore welcome any opportunity to strengthen their control, for after all, it is in service to a grand vision of human destiny: the perfectly ordered world, in which disease, crime, poverty, and perhaps suffering itself can be engineered out of existence. No nefarious motives are necessary. Of course they would like to keep track of everyone – all the better to ensure the common good. For them, Covid-19 shows how necessary that is. “Can we afford democratic freedoms in light of the coronavirus?” they ask. “Must we now, out of necessity, sacrifice those for our own safety?” It is a familiar refrain, for it has accompanied other crises in the past, like 9/11.
To rework a common metaphor, imagine a man with a hammer, stalking around looking for a reason to use it. Suddenly he sees a nail sticking out. He’s been looking for a nail for a long time, pounding on screws and bolts and not accomplishing much. He inhabits a worldview in which hammers are the best tools, and the world can be made better by pounding in the nails. And here is a nail! We might suspect that in his eagerness he has placed the nail there himself, but it hardly matters. Maybe it isn’t even a nail that’s sticking out, but it resembles one enough to start pounding. When the tool is at the ready, an opportunity will arise to use it.
And I will add, for those inclined to doubt the authorities, maybe this time it really is a nail. In that case, the hammer is the right tool – and the principle of the hammer will emerge the stronger, ready for the screw, the button, the clip, and the tear.
Either way, the problem we deal with here is much deeper than that of overthrowing an evil coterie of Illuminati. Even if they do exist, given the tilt of civilization, the same trend would persist without them, or a new Illuminati would arise to assume the functions of the old.
True or false, the idea that the epidemic is some monstrous plot perpetrated by evildoers upon the public is not so far from the mindset of find-the-pathogen. It is a crusading mentality, a war mentality. It locates the source of a sociopolitical illness in a pathogen against which we may then fight, a victimizer separate from ourselves. It risks ignoring the conditions that make society fertile ground for the plot to take hold. Whether that ground was sown deliberately or by the wind is, for me, a secondary question.
What I will say next is relevant whether or not SARS-CoV2 is a genetically engineered bioweapon, is related to 5G rollout, is being used to prevent “disclosure,” is a Trojan horse for totalitarian world government, is more deadly than we’ve been told, is less deadly than we’ve been told, originated in a Wuhan biolab, originated at Fort Detrick, or is exactly as the CDC and WHO have been telling us. It applies even if everyone is totally wrong about the role of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the current epidemic. I have my opinions, but if there is one thing I have learned through the course of this emergency is that I don’t really know what is happening. I don’t see how anyone can, amidst the seething farrago of news, fake news, rumors, suppressed information, conspiracy theories, propaganda, and politicized narratives that fill the Internet. I wish a lot more people would embrace not knowing. I say that both to those who embrace the dominant narrative, as well as to those who hew to dissenting ones. What information might we be blocking out, in order to maintain the integrity of our viewpoints? Let’s be humble in our beliefs: it is a matter of life and death.
The War on Death
My 7-year-old son hasn’t seen or played with another child for two weeks. Millions of others are in the same boat. Most would agree that a month without social interaction for all those children a reasonable sacrifice to save a million lives. But how about to save 100,000 lives? And what if the sacrifice is not for a month but for a year? Five years? Different people will have different opinions on that, according to their underlying values.
Let’s replace the foregoing questions with something more personal, that pierces the inhuman utilitarian thinking that turns people into statistics and sacrifices some of them for something else. The relevant question for me is, Would I ask all the nation’s children to forego play for a season, if it would reduce my mother’s risk of dying, or for that matter, my own risk? Or I might ask, Would I decree the end of human hugging and handshakes, if it would save my own life? This is not to devalue Mom’s life or my own, both of which are precious. I am grateful for every day she is still with us. But these questions bring up deep issues. What is the right way to live? What is the right way to die?
The answer to such questions, whether asked on behalf of oneself or on behalf of society at large, depends on how we hold death and how much we value play, touch, and togetherness, along with civil liberties and personal freedom. There is no easy formula to balance these values.
Over my lifetime I’ve seen society place more and more emphasis on safety, security, and risk reduction. It has especially impacted childhood: as a young boy it was normal for us to roam a mile from home unsupervised – behavior that would earn parents a visit from Child Protective Services today. It also manifests in the form of latex gloves for more and more professions; hand sanitizer everywhere; locked, guarded, and surveilled school buildings; intensified airport and border security; heightened awareness of legal liability and liability insurance; metal detectors and searches before entering many sports arenas and public buildings, and so on. Writ large, it takes the form of the security state.
The mantra “safety first” comes from a value system that makes survival top priority, and that depreciates other values like fun, adventure, play, and the challenging of limits. Other cultures had different priorities. For instance, many traditional and indigenous cultures are much less protective of children, as documented in Jean Liedloff’s classic, The Continuum Concept. They allow them risks and responsibilities that would seem insane to most modern people, believing that this is necessary for children to develop self-reliance and good judgement. I think most modern people, especially younger people, retain some of this inherent willingness to sacrifice safety in order to live life fully. The surrounding culture, however, lobbies us relentlessly to live in fear, and has constructed systems that embody fear. In them, staying safe is over-ridingly important. Thus we have a medical system in which most decisions are based on calculations of risk, and in which the worst possible outcome, marking the physician’s ultimate failure, is death. Yet all the while, we know that death awaits us regardless. A life saved actually means a death postponed.
The ultimate fulfillment of civilization’s program of control would be to triumph over death itself. Failing that, modern society settles for a facsimile of that triumph: denial rather than conquest. Ours is a society of death denial, from its hiding away of corpses, to its fetish for youthfulness, to its warehousing of old people in nursing homes. Even its obsession with money and property – extensions of the self, as the word “mine” indicates – expresses the delusion that the impermanent self can be made permanent through its attachments. All this is inevitable given the story-of-self that modernity offers: the separate individual in a world of Other. Surrounded by genetic, social, and economic competitors, that self must protect and dominate in order to thrive. It must do everything it can to forestall death, which (in the story of separation) is total annihilation. Biological science has even taught us that our very nature is to maximize our chances of surviving and reproducing.
I asked a friend, a medical doctor who has spent time with the Q’ero in Peru, whether the Q’ero would (if they could) intubate someone to prolong their life. “Of course not,” she said. “They would summon the shaman to help him die well.” Dying well (which isn’t necessarily the same as dying painlessly) is not much in today’s medical vocabulary. No hospital records are kept on whether patients die well. That would not be counted as a positive outcome. In the world of the separate self, death is the ultimate catastrophe.
But is it? Consider this perspective from Dr. Lissa Rankin: “Not all of us would want to be in an ICU, isolated from loved ones with a machine breathing for us, at risk of dying alone- even if it means they might increase their chance of survival. Some of us might rather be held in the arms of loved ones at home, even if that means our time has come…. Remember, death is no ending. Death is going home.”
When the self is understood as relational, interdependent, even inter-existent, then it bleeds over into the other, and the other bleeds over into the self. Understanding the self as a locus of consciousness in a matrix of relationship, one no longer searches for an enemy as the key to understanding every problem, but looks instead for imbalances in relationships. The War on Death gives way to the quest to live well and fully, and we see that fear of death is actually fear of life. How much of life will we forego to stay safe?
Totalitarianism – the perfection of control – is the inevitable end product of the mythology of the separate self. What else but a threat to life, like a war, would merit total control? Thus Orwell identified perpetual war as a crucial component of the Party’s rule.
Against the backdrop of the program of control, death denial, and the separate self, the assumption that public policy should seek to minimize the number of deaths is nearly beyond question, a goal to which other values like play, freedom, etc. are subordinate. Covid-19 offers occasion to broaden that view. Yes, let us hold life sacred, more sacred than ever. Death teaches us that. Let us hold each person, young or old, sick or well, as the sacred, precious, beloved being that they are. And in the circle of our hearts, let us make room for other sacred values too. To hold life sacred is not just to live long, it is to live well and right and fully.
Like all fear, the fear around the coronavirus hints at what might lie beyond it. Anyone who has experienced the passing of someone close knows that death is a portal to love. Covid-19 has elevated death to prominence in the consciousness of a society that denies it. On the other side of the fear, we can see the love that death liberates. Let it pour forth. Let it saturate the soil of our culture and fill its aquifers so that it seeps up through the cracks of our crusted institutions, our systems, and our habits. Some of these may die too.
What world shall we live in?
How much of life do we want to sacrifice at the altar of security? If it keeps us safer, do we want to live in a world where human beings never congregate? Do we want to wear masks in public all the time? Do we want to be medically examined every time we travel, if that will save some number of lives a year? Are we willing to accept the medicalization of life in general, handing over final sovereignty over our bodies to medical authorities (as selected by political ones)? Do we want every event to be a virtual event? How much are we willing to live in fear?
Covid-19 will eventually subside, but the threat of infectious disease is permanent. Our response to it sets a course for the future. Public life, communal life, the life of shared physicality has been dwindling over several generations. Instead of shopping at stores, we get things delivered to our homes. Instead of packs of kids playing outside, we have play dates and digital adventures. Instead of the public square, we have the online forum. Do we want to continue to insulate ourselves still further from each other and the world?
It is not hard to imagine, especially if social distancing is successful, that Covid-19 persists beyond the 18 months we are being told to expect for it to run its course. It is not hard to imagine that new viruses will emerge during that time. It is not hard to imagine that emergency measures will become normal (so as to forestall the possibility of another outbreak), just as the state of emergency declared after 9/11 is still in effect today. It is not hard to imagine that (as we are being told), reinfection is possible, so that the disease will never run its course. That means that the temporary changes in our way of life may become permanent.
To reduce the risk of another pandemic, shall we choose to live in a society without hugs, handshakes, and high-fives, forever more? Shall we choose to live in a society where we no longer gather en masse? Shall the concert, the sports competition, and the festival be a thing of the past? Shall children no longer play with other children? Shall all human contact be mediated by computers and masks? No more dance classes, no more karate classes, no more conferences, no more churches? Is death reduction to be the standard by which to measure progress? Does human advancement mean separation? Is this the future?
The same question applies to the administrative tools required to control the movement of people and the flow of information. At the present writing, the entire country is moving toward lockdown. In some countries, one must print out a form from a government website in order to leave the house. It reminds me of school, where one’s location must be authorized at all times. Or of prison. Do we envision a future of electronic hall passes, a system where freedom of movement is governed by state administrators and their software at all times, permanently? Where every movement is tracked, either permitted or prohibited? And, for our protection, where information that threatens our health (as decided, again, by various authorities) is censored for our own good? In the face of an emergency, like unto a state of war, we accept such restrictions and temporarily surrender our freedoms. Similar to 9/11, Covid-19 trumps all objections.
For the first time in history, the technological means exist to realize such a vision, at least in the developed world (for example, using cellphone location data to enforce social distancing; see also here). After a bumpy transition, we could live in a society where nearly all of life happens online: shopping, meeting, entertainment, socializing, working, even dating. Is that what we want? How many lives saved is that worth?
I am sure that many of the controls in effect today will be partially relaxed in a few months. Partially relaxed, but at the ready. As long as infectious disease remains with us, they are likely to be reimposed, again and again, in the future, or be self-imposed in the form of habits. As Deborah Tannen says, contributing to a Politico article on how coronavirus will change the world permanently, ‘We know now that touching things, being with other people and breathing the air in an enclosed space can be risky…. It could become second nature to recoil from shaking hands or touching our faces—and we may all fall heir to society-wide OCD, as none of us can stop washing our hands.” After thousands of years, millions of years, of touch, contact, and togetherness, is the pinnacle of human progress to be that we cease such activities because they are too risky?
Life is Community
The paradox of the program of control is that its progress rarely advances us any closer to its goal. Despite security systems in almost every upper middle-class home, people are no less anxious or insecure than they were a generation ago. Despite elaborate security measures, the schools are not seeing fewer mass shootings. Despite phenomenal progress in medical technology, people have if anything become less healthy over the past thirty years, as chronic disease has proliferated and life expectancy stagnated and, in the USA and Britain, started to decline.
The measures being instituted to control Covid-19, likewise, may end up causing more suffering and death than they prevent. Minimizing deaths means minimizing the deaths that we know how to predict and measure. It is impossible to measure the added deaths that might come from isolation-induced depression, for instance, or the despair caused by unemployment, or the lowered immunity and deterioration in health that chronic fear can cause. Loneliness and lack of social contact has been shown to increase inflammation, depression, and dementia. According to Lissa Rankin, M.D., air pollution increases risk of dying by 6%, obesity by 23%, alcohol abuse by 37%, and loneliness by 45%.
Another danger that is off the ledger is the deterioration in immunity caused by excessive hygiene and distancing. It is not only social contact that is necessary for health, it is also contact with the microbial world. Generally speaking, microbes are not our enemies, they are our allies in health. A diverse gut biome, comprising bacteria, viruses, yeasts, and other organisms, is essential for a well-functioning immune system, and its diversity is maintained through contact with other people and with the world of life. Excessive hand-washing, overuse of antibiotics, aseptic cleanliness, and lack of human contact might do more harm than good. The resulting allergies and autoimmune disorders might be worse than the infectious disease they replace. Socially and biologically, health comes from community. Life does not thrive in isolation.
Seeing the world in us-versus-them terms blinds us to the reality that life and health happen in community. To take the example of infectious diseases, we fail to look beyond the evil pathogen and ask, What is the role of viruses in the microbiome? (See also here.) What are the body conditions under which harmful viruses proliferate? Why do some people have mild symptoms and others severe ones (besides the catch-all non-explanation of “low resistance”)? What positive role might flus, colds, and other non-lethal diseases play in the maintenance of health?
War-on-germs thinking brings results akin to those of the War on Terror, War on Crime, War on Weeds, and the endless wars we fight politically and interpersonally. First, it generates endless war; second, it diverts attention from the ground conditions that breed illness, terrorism, crime, weeds, and the rest.
Despite politicians’ perennial claim that they pursue war for the sake of peace, war inevitably breeds more war. Bombing countries to kill terrorists not only ignores the ground conditions of terrorism, it exacerbates those conditions. Locking up criminals not only ignores the conditions that breed crime, it creates those conditions when it breaks up families and communities and acculturates the incarcerated to criminality. And regimes of antibiotics, vaccines, antivirals, and other medicines wreak havoc on body ecology, which is the foundation of strong immunity. Outside the body, the massive spraying campaigns sparked by Zika, Dengue Fever, and now Covid-19 will visit untold damage upon nature’s ecology. Has anyone considered what the effects on the ecosystem will be when we douse it with antiviral compounds? Such a policy (which has been implemented in various places in China and India) is only thinkable from the mindset of separation, which does not understand that viruses are integral to the web of life.
To understand the point about ground conditions, consider some mortality statistics from Italy (from its National Health Institute), based on an analysis of hundreds of Covid-19 fatalities. Of those analyzed, less than 1% were free of serious chronic health conditions. Some 75% suffered from hypertension, 35% from diabetes, 33% from cardiac ischemia, 24% from atrial fibrillation, 18% from low renal function, along with other conditions that I couldn’t decipher from the Italian report. Nearly half the deceased had three or more of these serious pathologies. Americans, beset by obesity, diabetes, and other chronic ailments, are at least as vulnerable as Italians. Should we blame the virus then (which killed few otherwise healthy people), or shall we blame underlying poor health? Here again the analogy of the taut rope applies. Millions of people in the modern world are in a precarious state of health, just waiting for something that would normally be trivial to send them over the edge. Of course, in the short term we want to save their lives; the danger is that we lose ourselves in an endless succession of short terms, fighting one infectious disease after another, and never engage the ground conditions that make people so vulnerable. That is a much harder problem, because these ground conditions will not change via fighting. There is no pathogen that causes diabetes or obesity, addiction, depression, or PTSD. Their causes are not an Other, not some virus separate from ourselves, and we its victims.
Even in diseases like Covid-19, in which we can name a pathogenic virus, matters are not so simple as a war between virus and victim. There is an alternative to the germ theory of disease that holds germs to be part of a larger process. When conditions are right, they multiply in the body, sometimes killing the host, but also, potentially, improving the conditions that accommodated them to begin with, for example by cleaning out accumulated toxic debris via mucus discharge, or (metaphorically speaking) burning them up with fever. Sometimes called “terrain theory,” it says that germs are more symptom than cause of disease. As one meme explains it: “Your fish is sick. Germ theory: isolate the fish. Terrain theory: clean the tank.”
A certain schizophrenia afflicts the modern culture of health. On the one hand, there is a burgeoning wellness movement that embraces alternative and holistic medicine. It advocates herbs, meditation, and yoga to boost immunity. It validates the emotional and spiritual dimensions of health, such as the power of attitudes and beliefs to sicken or to heal. All of this seems to have disappeared under the Covid tsunami, as society defaults to the old orthodoxy.
Case in point: California acupuncturists have been forced to shut down, having been deemed “non-essential.” This is perfectly understandable from the perspective of conventional virology. But as one acupuncturist on Facebook observed, “What about my patient who I’m working with to get off opioids for his back pain? He’s going to have to start using them again.” From the worldview of medical authority, alternative modalities, social interaction, yoga classes, supplements, and so on are frivolous when it comes to real diseases caused by real viruses. They are relegated to an etheric realm of “wellness” in the face of a crisis. The resurgence of orthodoxy under Covid-19 is so intense that anything remotely unconventional, such as intravenous vitamin C, was completely off the table in the United States until two days ago (articles still abound “debunking” the “myth” that vitamin C can help fight Covid-19). Nor have I heard the CDC evangelize the benefits of elderberry extract, medicinal mushrooms, cutting sugar intake, NAC (N-acetyl L-cysteine), astragalus, or vitamin D. These are not just mushy speculation about “wellness,” but are supported by extensive research and physiological explanations. For example, NAC (general info, double-blind placebo-controlled study) has been shown to radically reduce incidence and severity of symptoms in flu-like illnesses.
As the statistics I offered earlier on autoimmunity, obesity, etc. indicate, America and the modern world in general are facing a health crisis. Is the answer to do what we’ve been doing, only more thoroughly? The response so far to Covid has been to double down on the orthodoxy and sweep unconventional practices and dissenting viewpoints aside. Another response would be to widen our lens and examine the entire system, including who pays for it, how access is granted, and how research is funded, but also expanding out to include marginal fields like herbal medicine, functional medicine, and energy medicine. Perhaps we can take this opportunity to reevaluate prevailing theories of illness, health, and the body. Yes, let’s protect the sickened fish as best we can right now, but maybe next time we won’t have to isolate and drug so many fish, if we can clean the tank.
I’m not telling you to run out right now and buy NAC or any other supplement, nor that we as a society should abruptly shift our response, cease social distancing immediately, and start taking supplements instead. But we can use the break in normal, this pause at a crossroads, to consciously choose what path we shall follow moving forward: what kind of healthcare system, what paradigm of health, what kind of society. This reevaluation is already happening, as ideas like universal free healthcare in the USA gain new momentum. And that path leads to forks as well. What kind of healthcare will be universalized? Will it be merely available to all, or mandatory for all – each citizen a patient, perhaps with an invisible ink barcode tattoo certifying one is up to date on all compulsory vaccines and check-ups. Then you can go to school, board a plane, or enter a restaurant. This is one path to the future that is available to us.
Another option is available now too. Instead of doubling down on control, we could finally embrace the holistic paradigms and practices that have been waiting on the margins, waiting for the center to dissolve so that, in our humbled state, we can bring them into the center and build a new system around them.
The Coronation
There is an alternative to the paradise of perfect control that our civilization has so long pursued, and that recedes as fast as our progress, like a mirage on the horizon. Yes, we can proceed as before down the path toward greater insulation, isolation, domination, and separation. We can normalize heightened levels of separation and control, believe that they are necessary to keep us safe, and accept a world in which we are afraid to be near each other. Or we can take advantage of this pause, this break in normal, to turn onto a path of reunion, of holism, of the restoring of lost connections, of the repair of community and the rejoining of the web of life.
Do we double down on protecting the separate self, or do we accept the invitation into a world where all of us are in this together? It isn’t just in medicine we encounter this question: it visits us politically, economically, and in our personal lives as well. Take for example the issue of hoarding, which embodies the idea, “There won’t be enough for everyone, so I am going to make sure there is enough for me.” Another response might be, “Some don’t have enough, so I will share what I have with them.” Are we to be survivalists or helpers? What is life for?
On a larger scale, people are asking questions that have until now lurked on activist margins. What should we do about the homeless? What should we do about the people in prisons? In Third World slums? What should we do about the unemployed? What about all the hotel maids, the Uber drivers, the plumbers and janitors and bus drivers and cashiers who cannot work from home? And so now, finally, ideas like student debt relief and universal basic income are blossoming. “How do we protect those susceptible to Covid?” invites us into “How do we care for vulnerable people in general?”
That is the impulse that stirs in us, regardless of the superficialities of our opinions about Covid’s severity, origin, or best policy to address it. It is saying, let’s get serious about taking care of each other. Let’s remember how precious we all are and how precious life is. Let’s take inventory of our civilization, strip it down to its studs, and see if we can build one more beautiful.
As Covid stirs our compassion, more and more of us realize that we don’t want to go back to a normal so sorely lacking it. We have the opportunity now to forge a new, more compassionate normal.
Hopeful signs abound that this is happening. The United States government, which has long seemed the captive of heartless corporate interests, has unleashed hundreds of billions of dollars in direct payments to families. Donald Trump, not known as a paragon of compassion, has put a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions. Certainly one can take a cynical view of both these developments; nonetheless, they embody the principle of caring for the vulnerable.
From all over the world we hear stories of solidarity and healing. One friend described sending $100 each to ten strangers who were in dire need. My son, who until a few days ago worked at Dunkin’ Donuts, said people were tipping at five times the normal rate – and these are working class people, many of them Hispanic truck drivers, who are economically insecure themselves. Doctors, nurses, and “essential workers” in other professions risk their lives to serve the public. Here are some more examples of the love and kindness eruption, courtesy of ServiceSpace:
Perhaps we’re in the middle of living into that new story. Imagine Italian airforce using Pavoratti, Spanish military doing acts of service, and street police playing guitars — to *inspire*. Corporations giving unexpected wage hikes. Canadians starting “Kindness Mongering.” Six year old in Australia adorably gifting her tooth fairy money, an 8th grader in Japan making 612 masks, and college kids everywhere buying groceries for elders. Cuba sending an army in “white robes” (doctors) to help Italy. A landlord allowing tenants to stay without rent, an Irish priest’s poem going viral, disabled activists producing hand sanitizer. Imagine. Sometimes a crisis mirrors our deepest impulse — that we can always respond with compassion.
As Rebecca Solnit describes in her marvelous book, A Paradise Built in Hell, disaster often liberates solidarity. A more beautiful world shimmers just beneath the surface, bobbing up whenever the systems that hold it underwater loosen their grip.
For a long time we, as a collective, have stood helpless in the face of an ever-sickening society. Whether it is declining health, decaying infrastructure, depression, suicide, addiction, ecological degradation, or concentration of wealth, the symptoms of civilizational malaise in the developed world are plain to see, but we have been stuck in the systems and patterns that cause them. Now, Covid has gifted us a reset.
A million forking paths lie before us. Universal basic income could mean an end to economic insecurity and the flowering of creativity as millions are freed from the work that Covid has shown us is less necessary than we thought. Or it could mean, with the decimation of small businesses, dependency on the state for a stipend that comes with strict conditions. The crisis could usher in totalitarianism or solidarity; medical martial law or a holistic renaissance; greater fear of the microbial world, or greater resiliency in participation in it; permanent norms of social distancing, or a renewed desire to come together.
What can guide us, as individuals and as a society, as we walk the garden of forking paths? At each junction, we can be aware of what we follow: fear or love, self-preservation or generosity. Shall we live in fear and build a society based on it? Shall we live to preserve our separate selves? Shall we use the crisis as a weapon against our political enemies? These are not all-or-nothing questions, all fear or all love. It is that a next step into love lies before us. It feels daring, but not reckless. It treasures life, while accepting death. And it trusts that with each step, the next will become visible.
Please don’t think that choosing love over fear can be accomplished solely through an act of will, and that fear too can be conquered like a virus. The virus we face here is fear, whether it is fear of Covid-19, or fear of the totalitarian response to it, and this virus too has its terrain. Fear, along with addiction, depression, and a host of physical ills, flourishes in a terrain of separation and trauma: inherited trauma, childhood trauma, violence, war, abuse, neglect, shame, punishment, poverty, and the muted, normalized trauma that affects nearly everyone who lives in a monetized economy, undergoes modern schooling, or lives without community or connection to place. This terrain can be changed, by trauma healing on a personal level, by systemic change toward a more compassionate society, and by transforming the basic narrative of separation: the separate self in a world of other, me separate from you, humanity separate from nature. To be alone is a primal fear, and modern society has rendered us more and more alone. But the time of Reunion is here. Every act of compassion, kindness, courage, or generosity heals us from the story of separation, because it assures both actor and witness that we are in this together.
I will conclude by invoking one more dimension of the relationship between humans and viruses. Viruses are integral to evolution, not just of humans but of all eukaryotes. Viruses can transfer DNA from organism to organism, sometimes inserting it into the germline (where it becomes heritable). Known as horizontal gene transfer, this is a primary mechanism of evolution, allowing life to evolve together much faster than is possible through random mutation. As Lynn Margulis once put it, we are our viruses.
And now let me venture into speculative territory. Perhaps the great diseases of civilization have quickened our biological and cultural evolution, bestowing key genetic information and offering both individual and collective initiation. Could the current pandemic be just that? Novel RNA codes are spreading from human to human, imbuing us with new genetic information; at the same time, we are receiving other, esoteric, “codes” that ride the back of the biological ones, disrupting our narratives and systems in the same way that an illness disrupts bodily physiology. The phenomenon follows the template of initiation: separation from normality, followed by a dilemma, breakdown, or ordeal, followed (if it is to be complete) by reintegration and celebration.
Now the question arises: Initiation into what? What is the specific nature and purpose of this initiation? The popular name for the pandemic offers a clue: coronavirus. A corona is a crown. “Novel coronavirus pandemic” means “a new coronation for all.”
Already we can feel the power of who we might become. A true sovereign does not run in fear from life or from death. A true sovereign does not dominate and conquer (that is a shadow archetype, the Tyrant). The true sovereign serves the people, serves life, and respects the sovereignty of all people. The coronation marks the emergence of the unconscious into consciousness, the crystallization of chaos into order, the transcendence of compulsion into choice. We become the rulers of that which had ruled us. The New World Order that the conspiracy theorists fear is a shadow of the glorious possibility available to sovereign beings. No longer the vassals of fear, we can bring order to the kingdom and build an intentional society on the love already shining through the cracks of the world of separation.
Helen says
Oh Charles, thanks so much for this. You have such a knack of making sense of and putting into (often quite a lot of :)) words what is going on in my mind and heart, and I was desperately needing to read your wisdom on this currently all-engulfing subject. I feel relieved to hear my thoughts and feelings echoed and expanded upon, and greatly encouraged to follow the path of compassion that can dwarf that of fear if I just let go… I am so grateful you name so clearly our fear of death, as I too think this is key to our current collective response, and awareness of this is crucial. I feel like I can breathe more easily.
Elly Lessin says
Charles,
As many have shared I was looking for your thoughts on the Corona Virus and knew they would come. Knew you were working hard at it. Seeing a message from you in my inbox late last night was so sweet. I was about to head upstairs for bed but sat down and read the essay in one fell swoop. I will have to return to it several times in the next coming days to really digest it. But know this… we are all so grateful for the gift of your deep thinking. I am excited to be living at this extraordinary time. You’ve said it differently than I might but I had concluded that the virus held an evolutionary gift for our species and our earth…may it be so! With deep appreciation….
Tim McKee says
Charles, Really astute. You took me on quite a ride, and I felt truth the whole time. A really hard thing to write and talk about, and you’ve done so admirably. Thank you. Brings to mind the Adrienne Rich poem, “My heart is moved/ by all I cannot save/I have to cast my lot/with those who/ reconstitute the world.”
Pink says
Finally, I get to hear your voice!
Not what I expected, but beautiful and soothing.
So I guess: what was needed instead.
May we choose our path wisely
Alison Levy says
A very heartfelt call for raised consciousness. I have two questions, why not call attention to two specific connects, M4A which would save lives quicker than anything because would be able to get early help (for any early signs of illness) without a bill, and the cruel animal agriculture industry which causes all pandemics plus causes ill health and environmental distruction?
These are of moral imperative and the empathy to care for all beings, human amd nonhuman animals might be just the medicine we need. ❤
Carin says
Words we can take hope along with and manifest the More Beautiful World!
Stephen DiCarmine says
Bravo!
Andie Timar says
Just the other day, I shared the below personal reflections from my journal. It means much to me that you share much of what I have been sensing! Particularly about the unknown, and also examining our relationship with viruses. Thank-you!
do words matter here:
replace ‘social distancing’
with
social spacing
physical distancing
physical spacing
?
then there is
psychological distancing;
how far do I need to stay away
to preserve some sanity
amidst all this hyper sanitization
and infodemic
this eddy of fake news,
some true
who knows
?
I am sitting with the question
what is real? vs what is true?
My feelings are real and my
body sensations are real
About the true part:
I have to do Byron Katies often:
“is it really true?” “how do I know it’s true?”
I am happy for the revitalization
of nature
dolphins swimming in the Venice canal
blankets of smog lifted from urban centres.
“if all humans perished, the earth would thrive…”
is an old adage that rings true right now.
As I walked this week
I attuned my ears to birdsongs
esp. to the dash dash, dot dot dot dot dot tune of the red cardinals
and when I noticed early shoots peaking forth
from the ground
I was reminded
not of hope
because right now
hope is too strong a word for me
but
that life in various forms continues and regenerates
even if I may not be a part
of this continuance or rebirth.
My greatest tool, resource
is mastering my dance with the Unknown:
this dance that served me well
along my journey with chronic illness.
I am actively practicing
leaning into
fully being with
making besties with
the Unknown
with Uncertainty.
I am reminded of what I read once:
In the west they say
“PANIC PANIC, EVERYTHING IS OUT OF CONTROL”
&
The Buddhists say
“relax, relax, everything is out of control”
and
how can I relax?
Is it as simple as a deep inhale and exhale
moment by moment?
I am asking myself many questions and holding them,
vs jumping on theories.
Like:
“what is our relationship with viruses?” “how can we coexist with them?”
“how does 5G play into all this?”
(and I am very angry about 5G)
“how can I shift my negative views about technology , even as we ramp up these days?”
( I am all too aware that isolation and loneliness were epidemic pre Covid 19, thanks to social media)
“will those who are awakening and clarifying their values go back to their old ways after all of this settles?”
“what will leadership at the global level look like? “even as more countries put up walls?”
“ will the next ‘Buddha’ really be community as they say?”
“are any of the ‘conspiracy theories’ out there true?” Who do I believe?”
“how can I forgive?”
“how can I trust?”
‘Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers.’
—Rainer Maria Rilke
Roxanna says
Stunningly beautiful
Real as the ground
I walk on less often
with far greater charge
to each lift, carry, place.
Thank You!! <3
myna lee johnstone says
Dolphins are NOT swimming in the canals. Fake News!!!
Tal R. says
I saw your e-mail this morning, and thought, “Finally!” (I’ve been checking your site for the past few weeks, wondering when a new essay would appear.)
Thank you for taking the time to think and feel so deeply into this immense moment in history and begin to tease out what we might shape from the chaos and bewilderment of these times — and why. It’s very helpful for me personally to feel less alone in contemplating these questions.
Sending love and peace and vitality the expanding capacity to trust in each moment to you and your family…
sharon says
Finally, a perspective that laces all the incongruous pieces of seemingly conflicting evidence together and offers a way to move forward as a society…with love and connection. Every word of this essay is honey to my heart. May it be you your and your friends as well. Thank you for your wisdom, love offering and the more than slight elevation of my brain cell circuitry. 🙂
Adrienne De Forrest says
I’m pondering all you say in this essay, and sharing it too. Thank you for using those two weeks to write this! I’ve seen too much of human nature to believe that your vision will happen overall, but even so I experience that it can happen within the individual. And who knows, but possibly, ‘What is an ocean but many drops of water…’ So keep on doing it, Charles!
Lynn Cosmos says
Thank-you so much Charles. Your work helps me to stay sane.
Brad says
Glorious, luminary brilliance.
Doc Hall says
Nicely done, Charles. You also found the data on Italian Covid-19 deaths associated with prior conditions. I had been hunting for it, but could not find it. Thank you.
Physical distancing in an epidemic runs counter to our instincts to hang together in crisis, so it is a major test of social discipline. Obviously, a controlling government may seek to perpetuate draconian controls, but longer term we need a new social system coming out of this crisis. One that is based on the continuance of all life through future generations, including that of the ecosphere on which human life depends. We have to increase the planetary human mindshare favoring survival and reproduction over our urges to dominate and control.
Heidi says
‘…A corona is a crown. “Novel coronavirus pandemic” means “a new coronation for all.”….’
Charles, you are insightful, a poet, an inspiration. May we emerge from this great turning into a new light: joyful, free, full of life and compassion and love for each other, and our beautiful world. May our hearts break when we see injustice, and may we claim our true inheritance: children of the Light, of the Truth, of the One King.
Peggy Gates says
A wonderful gift that we receive and gift to others…
Anne says
Thank you so much.
Laurent says
Domination or dominion… the choice is ours.
tom charles osher says
Wow Charles, so well thought out, conforms so much with my own thoughts and more. You have really covered it. We are a growing team of activists, experts, and visionaries trying to take it to the next level by fomenting the municipalism, communalism, or transition town movement on a world-scale, starting with reimagining Los Angeles, utopianizing cities, with horizontal or decentralized governing/ organizing, utilizing AI and IoT, making larger and larger networks, decentralizing banking, guaranteed incomes, etc. I hope you check it out and collaborate if you like: utopiacornucopia.org
Abrazo, Mofwoofoo aka Tom, founder of chambalabamba community (chambalabamba.org)
misterchristie says
China has 54+ new cases today, fyi. Lunar new year was cancelled in many communities at the first word of the outbreak. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Jim Goodwin says
Thank you for helping me make a fairly simple decision. After an extended break, my wife has recently gone back to work on the front lines as a nurse. We are both over 60, and have discussed the option of me moving out until the virus subsides. But after reading your essay, I realize I would rather die by her side or be here to care for her should she contract the virus than live in isolation. Separation from my beloved is a fate worse than death, so the decision is an easy one to make. Thank you for making that so clear. And, here’s to the possibility that the silver lining to this event will be a more beautiful world, indeed. #somethingwonderfuliscoming
Rosie Kaplan says
Blessing and love to you
Guillermo says
Wow! What clarity ! Thanks. Can I offer to translate this article into Spanish?
pierre says
Yes please !! Let me know if you have. I will post it on our web site.
Joui Turandot says
Thank you so much for this essay. I have been waiting patiently to hear your thoughts and as usual I am deeply touched and inspired. Most importantly you speak about the importance of human contact and staying connected to the vision of what it means to be alive and what kind of life is worth living.
Vie says
I am so grateful for your voice in the world.
Navin says
Too much to said to said I know nothing. By the end of the essay when Charles said,”And now let me venture into speculative territory, “Perhaps the great diseases of civilization have quickened our biological and cultural evolution…..” It is here that the awnser star shining through and it is an awnser that the system called Human Design have much to offer. Hello Charles have you look into Human Design and what they said about the completeness of the Solar Plexus mutation in 2027 and the end of the bacground tribal frequency. Here is an excerpt of what they propose- “A new cycle begins in 2027 and will carry the frequency of the Cross of the Sleeping Phoenix with Gates 55, 59, 20, and 34. Ra often characterized it as the cycle of the Individual. In many ways, the value of Strategy and Inner Authority will be more fully realized in this coming cycle; as the community, state, national and international support structures continue to break down, it is the aware individual that can make decisions correctly for themselves that will have distinct advantages.
Our next evolutionary step will occur in this next cycle, which will bring extensive mutation to the Solar Plexus and the emerging non-linear, non-verbal felt sense of awareness that is neither body awareness nor mental awareness, but emotional or spirit awareness”. Hope this can be of help. Love, Navin
Nicole says
Navin, interesting to hear this – Ive become aware of some of this recent work at Uluru , more recently coming across one of Robert Coon’s books. I would really appreciate a recommendation on where to find out more about the solar plexus work, particularly if anything can be done to support it. thanks nicole
ATB says
YES! Inner Authority, also signified by Saturn and Capricorn!
Everything you say here, I agree with.
Lynne Lillie says
Wow. Thank you Charles. How challenging it must have been to bring so many disparate thoughts/problems/possibilities together into one “crowning” essay, and how challenging (as a reader) to see where I/we might stand on the fault line…thank you for the poignant reminder of what I (and perhaps all of us) need to remember, and yes, for shining a light on places where I/we may fall short: (er, at least one “ouch” moment as I recalled grabbing more than one 8-pack of toilet paper–I wondered, “OMG have I fallen into the hoarder trap?”). It does take a moment to regroup after the first “gotta save myself and my family” (or in the TP example, “save my own ass”) imperative–but then, reason does surface, and the idea of a better world–“a more beautiful world”–on the other side of all this, does take root. And that’s where I greatly appreciate your help in realigning with the possibility that we can do better; we can show up for “The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible.” With sincere appreciation.
.
Rebel r. Radio says
We have seen the enemy. And the enemy is us. We are the virus my friend. For we are the ones who collectively have created the conditions and failed to heed the warnings that allowed it to emerge and spread without restraint or reservation.
But what to do? Now that the cat if out of the proverbial bag. And Pandoras lid has been lifted. We stay in denial or do we do something about it. Do we keep looking at the parts and not the whole. Do we continue to live and dwell in our own separate solos and echo chambers. Do we realize that we are both the problem and the solution. And the choice is ours which way we wish to go. And what we choose to believe.
In all of this you are right I believe. Choice. We are free agents. We hold in the end the responsibility for what we believe in. Even if our course of action is curtailed by others. Physically and materially more endowed and powerful than we are.
But this is not just a material or physical problem. This goes beyond the limits of just being an existential crisis. This is an indictment of our whole way of living. And seeing and navigating the world around us. For we have been so incredibly and unbelievable narcissistic. We have lost of sight of our blind spots. And that we simply do not know what we do not know. And how do we deal with that.
How to be both humble and bold. Knowing and unknowing. Fragile yet resilient. Afraid yet resolved. Dire yet optimistic. The many paradoxes this moment calls for. How do we become comfortable and at ease and even at peace with paradox. Even and especially when our lives seem to depend on it. For it does.
Mattias Desmet says
This is the best text I read on the corona crisis thus far. How great to know that there are people out there that did not loose their mind.
Yannis Grigoriou says
Thank you Charles from my heart for your exceptional work and your profound thinking. Very inspiring, shedding light upon the dark cloud over humanity. You have nailed it in every sense of the word!!
Mary Earle Chase says
Charles, you have done it again — given voice to our collective soul. Thank you.
Polly Thurston says
Thanks Charles – Yes, yes, yes – this is an opportunity to ask questions about how we create the more beautiful world, about how we move from the paradigm of separation into Interbeing, loving and respecting ALL beings. A couple days ago I too wrote a short, silly poem to lighten my heart – titled, Hello Heart
Hello Heart
What do you want?
I don’t know –
that’s clear.
What’s dear?
Love, friends,
connection –
that’s clear.
Hello Sun
glad you’re here
today
after the drear.
Hello Drear
I care, I’m here
whisper, whisper
a prayer of care
La la la la
here and there.
May all beings
everywhere
be safe
be happy
be loved
find peace.
Jacqui Denomme says
This poem is utterly delightful! Thank-you, Polly Thurston!
Deb Carey says
A new world consciousness is forged in bits and pieces of crisis and compassion. It comes to us by fits and starts. How it comes together is a mystery to me.
Étienne says
Thank you Charles for your wise words.
Jim Powers says
Charles, thank you for these thoughtful reflections about the path of COVID-19 we find ourselves walking along. I think that C19 may be a gift from Gaia to the ecosystem of Earth. We have seen a significant reduction in human releases of greenhouse gasses, an effect the last 40 years of conversation and predictions could not accomplish. If we can learn that our consumption addiction is not necessary to our happiness, perhaps these GHG reductions will continue. C19 also reduces the human population, another stressor on our ecosystem.
Hyun Hope Ning says
Sitting here now so filled up with love. Thank you dear Charles.
Linda Jansen says
Show glad you showed up in the stream today. “Anyone who has experienced the passing of someone close knows that death is a portal to love.” I feel this so deeply. Thank you, Charles.
Richard Talbott says
From my first introduction to the work of Charles Eisenstein I knew that he spoke for me. I hold the utterances of most of the other philosophers I respect, as worth considering until I’m able to express the underlying ideas in my own words, at which time the ideas become, for all (my) practical purposes, “The Truth”. With Charles, my considerations are leap-frogged. His words ring true for me directly and immediately — evidence that at some point, both he and I experienced a spiritual shift from a mindset of separation to the spiritual revelation of our “inter-existence”. The logic that follows from the “new&ancient mindset” becomes obvious instead of negotiable.
Mike Dickenson says
So fucking good. THANK YOU for a grounded perspective in this time of over-reaction. I was JUST talking about the power of saying, “I don’t know.” And there you are saying it. Yes to people like you!
Susan says
Thank you for sorting through all these levels in a way that I and others can follow. I do not want to be ruled by fear, but by my vision of what life can be. You are helping. I’d rather live a shorter life in a world of helpers, than a longer life in a world of isolation and fear. I want more music, not less. Thank you for using your holy gift of mind/body/spirit. Sending a virtual hug until real ones are possible. Live well and long to help more of us.
Robert Styler says
Charles. Beautiful and necessary. I loved the whole thing and your last paragraph brought everything home. Thank you for being such a clarion voice.
Tiny notes (I rarely find typos in writing). Second to last paragraph: “initiation?The popular” just needs a space.
Unless I am reading it wrong, this sentence needs an “are”: Do we double down on protecting the separate self, or do we accept the invitation into a world where all of us (are) in this together?
Thank you for going deep and coming back up to “shimmering surface” to share your wisdom.
Steve says
This is wonderful, Charles – thank you. I love the questions you have left me to ponder and once again you leave me more at peace with all the uncertainty.
Ted says
This virus is like a fire burning thru an old and stagnating forest. Burning through our artificial systems and structures that would have us believe that we do better if we live as though we are separate from each other and this Earth.
Cathy Bliss says
Wow. I will digest on this for awhile. I appreciate you and your amazing ability to evaluate the many visions and possibilities.
March 22 I posted on facebook “I am remembering Barbara Marx Hubbard talking about “hospicing out the old and midwifeing in the new” – birthing of humanity. As so many of us are cocooning right now, I trust that new Design Science Engineers and artists are creating a quantum leap new world that works for everyone. And so it is. Amen.”
Charles Eisenstein I am surrounding you with love and happiness and clarity and joy. blessings (Daniel Schmachtenberger’s Mom)
Martina Nicholson, MD says
“live the questions themselves, like locked rooms, or books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Perhaps, someday, slowly, without quite knowing it, you will live along into the answers”. Rainer Maria Rilke.
I loved that you alluded to the cutting of the thread of fate. I love the range of your understanding and your questions. The universe is unfolding as it should, as it will. THANK YOU.
Linda Miller says
Medicine to my soul. Thank you! I have cast these words of wisdom and truth far and wide. Bless you and yours. Be well. May all Beings be happy; may all Beings be free of suffering. Again and again Thank.you!
Amber Samya says
This is the most profound and coherent source of wisdom on what is occurring in our world right now. I read this with a current of resonance running through me. Tears coming and going throughout. Thank you for your service to us all with this labour of deep love and truth telling.
John-Michael Dumais says
Great record of a 360-degree inquiry Charles. Thank you for your deep-diving. Let us know engage each other in these emergent conversations.
rowan says
Thank you Charles so much for taking the time to write those words from your heart and “thinkings”. loved the replies it encouraged too thanks all who have added to this page . A hug to you all. Rowan.
Tom McAfee says
You are saying what I have been sensing but could not articulate. This is a masterwork of knowledge and wisdom.
Sandra says
Thank you! You so well elucidated and expanded upon my impressions that came forth in the poem below. You e given me much to think about, and I’ll be sharing your words with friends.
Pandora Corona
March 14, 2020
This pandemic, Corona Virus,
new to the world,
makes it’s way like a self-crowned personage,
a regal but deadly presence,
an autocrat, which like all bullies, eventually topples.
But this stealthy organism is opening
a Pandora’s box of possibilities.
Stealing our breath, making us pause,
while clearing our atmosphere,
space photos show no pollution in the industrial world,
show us what can happen if we green our lives.
Slows us down, to meet this moment, and one another,
not go go go, but stop, look, listen.
What have we been missing? Kindness and community.
Songs from the balconies, stars in the night, silence in the woods.
Shared sense of commonality; we truly are connected.
Breathe the same air, drink water that once was the ocean,
eat food grown halfway ‘round the planet,
and know we are not divided from this world.
Steeling our resolve to turn this fear, this angst,
into a moment of humanity,
Ah, yes, humanity showing us what it’s got.
Do we have what it takes to be relations to the world?
Sleepy-eyed no more, no excuses now, call the neighbor,
play with the kids, read the book,
plant the seed, wash the hands,
practice self-care, other care,
share the food, share the workload,
and even that precious TP (really, what is that all about?).
Seeing a new way to be in the world, it is 2020 after all,
cognizant how fleeting and fragile it is,
what a strange and special moment inhabited in this world.
Why not live it for the highest good of all?
Pandora has made her move, the lid is off, the chest is open, all the possibilities flying around.
Which ones will we catch and claim, which will fall aside?
Sitting on the edge, on the precipice of beginnings and endings,
Sits sweet hope, for a healthy world, a crown of creation.
Evan Lenz says
After grumbling through your section on conspiracy theories and nodding through most of the rest, I broke into tears upon finishing your second-to-last paragraph. Thank you for opening my heart with this touching vision. I pray that each of us will answer the call.
Denise says
True brilliance in the King’s court!! Thank you for how full all at once…I want to share this immediately!
Richard Page says
The depth of your inquiry and willingness to stay in ‘not knowing’ affects my own need to assign blame while the mega need is to transform our greed and fear…
“God of change unbind my wings.
Detach me now from grabbing things.
I fly with you to unborn lands.
We, all safe, now in your Hands…”
Rev. Richard Page
(we met at IONS where we traded books)
Lisette Thooft says
This is brilliant writing, sane and uplifting. Thank you very much.
Kylie says
Thank you for this. I really needed this message as I have been succumbing to the fear of what this virus may bring. I am not worried about the actual virus, I am worried about any possible forced vaccinations and other social liberties taken from us. But, maybe the virus will be the coronation. I love this. You have helped me change my mindset. One more person released from fear.
Christine Elizabeth Grace says
Word Up, Charles! Yep, this and oh, so much more Good For All! In my life experience, up till now, the observer effect is real. I am surrendered to Love and if I die two minutes from now, I am at peace knowing I have done my best. The world I know in my heart of hearts that IS more beautiful than we’ve known up till now in this physical realm, IS HAPPENING NOW <3
Gary Thomson says
Thank you Charles, a thought-provoking and multidimensional analysis as always! As I read it, my mind kept bringing up the (for me game-changing) Sacred Economics short film (www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEZkQv25uEs) and in particular these lines:
‘’So I think we’re going to see a series of crisis moments, each one more severe than the last; and at each crisis moment we’ll have a collection choice – do we give up the game and join the people? Or do we hold on even tighter? It’s really up to us to determine at what point this wake up point will happen’’
And a little out of context,
‘’ . . . . the other part is the coming of age ordeal, when the old world falls apart, and a new world is born’’
Ivana Metelková says
Excelent 🙂
Michael says
Beautiful! Resonant! Grateful!
Nate says
Charles and others,
One of the things that arises in me is how the concept of “control” for me seems related to the “self”. To me, it’s similar to the contemplation of how much “structure” (routine, etc) versus “fluidity” is the right balance at the individual and collective level. Back to the first sentence/concept, the balance is what I wonder. The belief that the “self” can “control” its own destiny is at the center of those that think differently than me. I believe I am here to serve something bigger than myself and have to turn myself over to the fact that my environment is more persuasive than my “individual will”. Most of what I read corroborates this on the meta level of what I sense on the personal level. So what is the right balance of taking ownership/control/will in ones life and our collective lives versus relinquishing to mystery/life/something greater. I try to consciously choose the latter as much as I can to rebalance my existence, but it is difficult in a world that pushes me towards the former.
Paola says
Thank you for triggering a wonderful in person conversation with my partner. Sending you love and light and appreciation and sunshine from Mexico
Jaine says
Charles, you have long been a voice of sanity in my world, and I am breathing deeply whilst reading this essay over a course of an evening – taking it slow and absorbing all of your ideas. It’s taken me on a rollercoaster journey, and has left me more determined than ever to remain the shining, trusting, compassionate soul I know I can be when I drop out of the overculture and rest back in to my world of differentness, that is so often embodied in the worlds your words and ideas create of something more radically beautiful than we can ever imagine. So deeply and truly, thank you.
Cymande Baxter-Rogers says
I am reminded that every time my children had an illness with fever, their developmental status advanced to the next level. So too society, of course.
Thomas Atwood says
Thanks for another great essay, Charles. I hope you continue to interpret our cultural malaise through the lens of the Story of Separation for many good years to come! You have a wonderful gift for communication, and though it will take longer than we want for your message to take root and flower, I’m grateful for your Cassandra-like presence in our lives. Keep it up! The world is hungry for what you’re trying to tell us.
Barbara says
Now to reread and explore the links.
So compleat.
[Liked the sidebar astrology interview – will go back for more of them!]
Your magnetized audience member,
Barbara
Phyll says
FANTASTIC ARTICLE, CHARLES! Sending a warm, wonderful, cyber hug to you! We can hug online, right? Let’s all do MORE of this.
Charles, this is one unbelievable collection of intelligentsia, wrapped in total heart-centered compassion, empathy, humanism and love. It took me over an hour to read, as I mindfully centered on each word, every sentence, phrase, paragraph and intonation of what you were expressing and feeling. Well worth my hour and a half of “life.” Equal to millions of dollars in the traditional world, at least!
Charles, I’m SO GLAD I met and spent several days in retreat with you at Garrison Center a few years ago. I have you in my psyche and cells, now. You were always in my heart.
You are so right when you said, in short, that nobody knows what’s going on. Or, what “might” continue to go on—from remaining isolated and anxious, to having the screws put tighter to all of us, in everyday circumstances, i.e. invisible bar codes that keep track of our state-mandated vaccinations and God knows what else! (I didn’t even “know” there were such things as invisible bar codes—eek gads! Is this for real or an imaginative made up way of getting your point across even stronger?) If the latter, rest assured my friend, you certainly DID!
Charles, this prose is nothing short of BRILLIANT. Miraculous. Insightful. Creative. Promising. Hopeful. Wild. Wooley. Wizardry. I love you & all of our compadres on this most unusual, ever unpredictable and continuously mysterious journey we all travel together now. Indeed, we are ALL IN IT TOGETHER. I pray for magic in the air, stardust in the skies and miracles of radiance that will shift our world towards the grace, love, harmony & beauty that are all possible. Forever.
Pat Bushell says
Thanks you for your fourth and fifth paragraphs Charles. I, too, am stunned by the sudden arrival of birth pangs that we’ve been waiting for for so long. Yes, I’m apprehensive but also euphoric. Thanks too for your final three paragraphs that spell out what may be happening. Certainly I’ve been intrigued by the fairness displayed by this virus that’s taking old lives not young ones (I’m 73 myself, so I can say that), which also means it’ll be kinder to people in poorer countries with their lower average age. Such a reverse of disasters we’ve seen up to now! And I agree it seems to portend more good than bad will come of it.
Never mind all the conspiracy theories, let’s all share in the beauty of what is struggling to be born.
jane says
Never mind all the conspiracy theories, let’s all share in the beauty of what is struggling to be born.
Beautiful concept. I agree wholeheartedly.
Eva says
Thank you, Charles, for your incredible insight and wisdom. I cannot put into words how much this essay moved me, and how needed it is at just this moment.
Melissa says
Thank you thank you thank you.
Angelia Currie says
Thank you. I am so grateful for your beautiful articulation of so much of what I have been thinking and feeling and for what you are contributing to expanding possibility. I’m feeling tremendous love, appreciation, and inspiration.
Michelle says
Terrain theory as global functional medicine. I vote for that! Thanks for making me think and feel more positive and curious! Big hug!
Joy says
Nothing less than what I expect from you… brilliance combined with heart. Thank you!
Shiraz Dindar says
This might be the most helpful thing I have ever read.
Kate Taylor-Smith says
I am often beautifully surprised by your 360 degree thinking, thank you for offering such a panoramic view of potential – as we stand as sovereign beings, our opportunity as a collective is huge – may it be so! Thank you for your insights. Kate Taylor-Smith
Morgan Rich says
Thank you Charles. For your courage. For your care. Your insight.
While reading, I notice a great gratitude for your eloquence and that you are who you are. I bow to your believing in and sharing yourself as you do. You provide conceptual understanding of what my body knows.
Then in that, I also notice my doubt of myself, awaiting your words to confirm my felt senses.
My hope is that I daily walk my path with courage, care, and willingness to not know.
human says
Evolution … Revolution … Revelation. Any and all are at our doorstep. And Charles has opened it a smidgeon further, to help us peer into the fermenting Fear and let it breathe.
If the chrysalis is cracking thanks to a Corona, who or what will we become? Do we Want to become? Will we Allow ourselves to (dare) become?
The greatest threat to Humankind is a lack of Humankind(ness). This is also our greatest immune boost. And I relish the day when Connectivity is borne of Creativity rather than Catastrophe – that we might usher in a music-driven, worldwide “B’earthday” Party for the Planet celebrating Every living being; called Synchronistory!
Meanwhile at the threshold, what a crossroads indeed – and what a WOW written piece, Charles :-).
Jo says
Wow, what a great read! Love the message you’re sending Charles, thank you so much.
Ayanna Parrent says
Thank you thank you!! I was feeling crazy until a friend sent me this. Brilliant!!!! All so true and important and needed for us to be human. I feel grounded and good about continuing my work. 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
Bryan Thomas says
Excellent Charles
Your humanism at the forefront while you challenge entrenched and outdated concepts of the ‘old order’ whose death rattles we suffer through together….
Brings to mind another great revelation …… Prior Unity – the basis for a new human civilisation… a book by the world friend Adi Da ….essential reading
Thank you
Janelle says
Beautiful. Thank you for going down all the rabbit holes and emerging with this informative and provocative response. I too am worried about this separation becoming the new normal. I have been isolated and ill so long, I know what it means to health, personally. Many are not remotely prepared for this shift, as I have been. Something beautiful has happened within me, my heart has expanded in its capacity to love without fear or conditions. To hold all beings’ response to this crisis as valid, raw, and valuable.
Morgan Hall says
Amen.
Kathy says
I have been waiting for this. This. This helps on every level of life. Thank you my dear friend for your persistence and putting this out here where we can resonate together. You have covered the multi verses to our collective song and I applaud your TIMELINESS in such a period of crisis. I will be watching and participating and reimagining new working metaphors for this new world we live in. Alongside.
Margaret Emerson says
Reading this, I know why I feel the way I do about this lock-down. I don’t want this to become the “new normal”. I value freedom, adventure, community. I would rather take my chances with this virus than live a smaller, more isolated life. Thank you, Charles, for giving us so much to think about. — Your friend from Ridgway
Tara says
Love this beautiful article. Thank you for bringing up touch deprivation- it is real. I made a video 2 days ago to address just this -8 tips for touch deprivation in times of isolation https://youtu.be/ix-ccVjInXA
Arteshar Mai Rah says
Wow, You have put the whole structure together beautifully, and presented each perspective of what is occuring without telling others what they should believe. Very clean! I love your fantastic reframe of the virus to being a coronation.
A masterpiece which shows the quality of your soul and consciousness of your being.
Mike Fisher says
A lot of words to say nothing!
John David says
Charles,
Don’t know if you’ve heard, but both the scientist who wrote the Imperial College London study that was used to initiate the “shelter in place” and Dr. Fauci who said it was 10 times worse than the flu, have re-evaluated the numbers and reduced their predictions dramatically.
https://beforeitsnews.com/health/2020/03/breaking-experts-drastically-alter-course-on-coronavirus-video-3016637.html
https://www.oann.com/dr-anthony-fauci-backtracks-on-deadliness-of-virus/
Also there’s a hospital in NYC using IV vitamin C.
JD
Richard Johnson says
What is to be done.
Ask questions. Chief among them. Is this what it means to be human. To destroy your own ecosystem. And yourself in the process. Along with the future of your children. All for the sake of making money. And if so. Could we not have done better. Or is this a fatal condition of being human.
The Coronavirus is merely an extension of an extinction that we have created. It’s just that because it’s now affecting us. We are paying it this much attention. Whereas before most of us could not have cared less.
Michael A Maxsenti says
Charles, again thank you for offering humanity a light through the fog that we may navigate towards. With much love and appreciation, Michael
Cory says
I was waiting on your thoughts, thank you!
Robin says
My philosopher’s heart is soothed. A deeply felt thank-you, Charles, to you for doing the work. Blessings to you and your family.
Marika Hall says
Thank you so much Charles! You have put into words all the things I have been feeling and thinking!
Renee Zenobi says
❤️ A FABULOUS essay‼️ Thank you for sharing. I have your book The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible, have shared it many times, and always look for your emails. THANK YOU‼️❤️
jane says
Thankyou so much for this incredibly well written, wise, and perceptive piece of writing which crystallizes and clarifies so much of what I was thinking and feeling in a vague way…….let us hope love will prevail as one thread of this ‘pause’ is that we all are being so much kinder to each other and marveling at the gladness of heart which that brings., and I love the phrase which is being used here, in Ireland , of cocooning the over- seventies to protect them.
Natalia says
So beautiful. 🙏🏼 There is so much fundamentalism once again: we seem to ignore all the aforementioned effects and consequences of isolation and other means of healing and only go for direct attack with (not even proved yet) science.
Can we please translate to more languages so that all people can read? I could volunteer to translate to Greek if you would like.
Lori Kay says
Charles. It feels like centuries ago that we spoke on the phone. The conversation we had clearly led into this and it’s no coincidence that I found you exactly when I needed to. I’ve been anxiously awaiting whatever it was that I knew you would produce and of course, it delivers not only facts and thought provoking anecdotes but also, the sense of calm that i am constantly searching for and can only seem to find within myself. As of late, If I sit with the stillness long enough, through my own fears of the unknowns, I trust that we’re headed somewhere different, maybe better, maybe not. Either way, it finally does feel like something is being handed to us in spite of so many not so hopeful “truths” being in the spotlight. Being in nyc has been quite the experience because once again, my home is ground zero. No judgement. Not bad or good but just what seems to be. Always. And I keep asking myself- what is this all for? The problems and crisis’ that existed in this city mattered very much then and they will continue to exist long after this pandemic. And yet, for whatever the reason, perhaps one of the reasons mentioned in your latest post, this one gets the attention, the fear, and the overt concern. Where are we even headed with this and while everyone works so hard, I’m busy thinking about what “normal” will even look like after this because how “normal” were things before? How much further apart do we have to be from one another? Even after they say, “no more distance”, will everyone be so willing? I am not so sure I will wait it out in nyc to find out the answer but I refuse to go backwards. After reading this thoughtful, smart, well researched and personal sharing, I feel validated in that i am basically on the same path I was on before the pandemic spread so rapidly and will continue on my way though slightly detoured with the rest of the country. And now, for the first time in my adult life since 9.11, we have a pause. This one seems to have more questions and an acute fear but nonetheless, a pause is a pause. To that- you mentioned on the phone that if/when I attend one of your retreats, that I would feel at home amongst the people who follow you. Based on what I read in the above comments, you clearly understand what I’m seeking as do all of the people who appreciate your work. During this pause, I will accept that my work is being deemed “non essential” though I refuse to believe that that’s remotely true. Sure- I’ll play along and role model what it means to be a good citizen because that’s my job and that also feels responsible. But the work that we do is quite essential as far as continuing to create the more beautiful world that our hearts know is possible.
Bill says
Brilliant full spectrum analysis of our current situation! Thank You Charles! This morning, before I received this, it dawned on me that we are truly in the Space Between Stories, not just theoretically but an in our face reality for most of the worlds population. That realization directed me to sign up for your course of the same name. I hope this shutdown lasts long enough for a critical mass of the population to realize where we are and become aware of the paths that we have to choose from, as well as attain the intuitive wisdom to choose the right one.
deanna says
YES!
Thank you Charles 🙏🏽
Ron Jones says
Fantastic essay, Charles. The way you deal with the very sensitive subject of death is masterful, as is so much else in this essay. Same for the treatise on control. I could go on. Thanks.
Janet Levatin says
Thanks for the thoughtful, comprehensive essay. I only hope enough people will consider the issues you raise to bring about some changes in how we approach things. What we have been doing so far has not led us to a good place.
Carolyn says
Thank you so much Charles for breathing humanity and perspective into this uncertain week, day, hour. Change is like a rocket! There is so much of value to mull over in your essay, least of all the thought of…. who declares that it is all over and we can all go back to normal, even if we wanted to! Let us all take on the creative activity each day of imagining the world as a glorious creation that we can all start to build from our hearts. I hope to see those glorious days emerge as a fulfillment of our collective desire and will.
Federico Guzmán says
Wonderful!!!
Michael Bisutti says
Charles, thank you for showing me the possibilities of choosing love and acceptance of our humanity over fear and isolation. I am somewhat hopeful that, as a society, we take advantage, at the back end, of this health crises enlightened enough to save our humanity rather than succumbing to more fear and control. But, there is a part of me that doubts today’s societies have the collective will and capacity to choose that better world.
Jen says
Can you make it so that this article/page can be viewed in Reader Mode? difficult for me to read with font type/size as-is. looks overwhelmingly too large for my sight.
Maya Lila says
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
waynuk urk. says
well cheers, thoroughly enjoyed hearing my own thoughts and a little more.
Space is not ready for us, lets get to just flying the planet as a ship.
The pilot is the astronaut and the scientist the indigenous.
Two of equal training in surviving each other, two of equal purpose to do the utmost to save both the mission and keep the ship intact with all its support systems.
Canada came so close recently to reset the compass of democracy.
You see, this was Gene Roddenberry’s dream. Although politically unpopular for tv.
He gave us the screens, the tec and the way to imagine possibilities, out of cardboard and glue, and we stuck to it.
Also we must adopt the spiral, this is a paradigm that we are not in linearity, how can we be?
We can not reach a destination and not be interrupted, we spiral to point b, with life in between, thanks John Lennon.
So, hearing the colonial a little, I wish upon the spectrum of Charles to continue on in fashion, I love what you write even though it makes a leader out of some, more than a chief, which in a loving todays world is over run with cronyism.
Vorian says
HI Charles, I got your essay forwarded to me and I very much enjoyed it. I think it has important reflections and messages that many should read and reflect upon. Regretfully, in-spite of more time on our hands, few will read it all. You have material in the essay for many articles! Any thoughts of breaking it up for those (us) with restlessness in our bones?
Michal Friedman says
Dear Charles,
Thank you so much for your deep thoughtfulness and how you connect so many dots. Like others I’ve been feeling some of what you’ve put into words here. I live in South Africa and am in day 3 of “lockdown”. I’m one of the privileged few who has a nice house with space to do this in. We’re not allowed to leave our houses except for absolute emergencies, not even walking. A majority of people are living in overcrowded and dense settlements often without decent water and sanitation. No savings to stock up on food for 3 weeks. Police and army are being used to ‘enforce the lockdown’. Finally the penny is dropping, without paying attention to “cleaning the tank”, we will all be impacted. Suddenly water tankers that people have been asking for, for years, are arriving (at least in some instances).
So I particularly resonate with what you say and it deeply disturbs me:
“All that was needed, they say, was a way to make the public embrace it, and now that has come. Whether or not current controls are permanent, a precedent is being set..”
I feel like I’m living inside of and colluding with the security state you describe.
Yet I also feel like I am experiencing both totalitarianism and solidarity simultaneously –
the great paradox of community organising and beautiful acts of kindness and compassion together with the draconian measures and increased physical isolation. In South Africa many of us are using the language of “physical distancing with social solidarity”. I’m part of a cross continental African group of about 60 people who every night, at the same time, together listen to a short audio meditation visualising everyone in the circle. At the end we’ve been focusing on sharing our gratitude for all health workers and emergency personnel. We then reflect on the experience for about 45mins afterwards. It’s proving to be a very important touchstone in people’s lives, a moment to experience an energetic connectedness, a transformation of fear into courage, peacefulness and calm in the midst of external chaos. As you say – ” which fork in the road we choose” is a very salient question. How we be now during this moment will hopefully influence that choice.
Diana Owens says
Dear Charles,
Thank you does not express my gratitude for your clarity and insight and consciousness and inner knowing that love is the answer and unites us all. We can trust in the unknown, the mystery of Life that is always evolving for the highest good of All! You and your words are the most hopeful and all inclusive information/communication that I have heard, read, taken in. Your word and your spirit is needed. How can I help you spread your words and your wisdom. Blessings and please keep up and keep on sharing and expanding your message. I love you and the spirit of knowing that you embody! I feel wholeness…the integration of the polarities of life and of this “conflict” that we are facing. Thank you for sharing this truth. I finally found you and feel hopeful that we can and will unite in the name of Love!
Pieter Ruigewaard says
Hi Charles,
Thank you for this beautiful essay. It touches and inspires me a lot. I had never read anything from you before; hadn’t heard of you. Your essay somehow reflects in a very focussed way all the thoughts that came up my mind during the two weeks of self-isolation I’m in. I walk a lot in the forest with the dog – my daily meditation – and your essay helps me to bring back my focus on what is essential in life: connection from the heart with all the people who are important for me.
lots of Love,
Pieter
Kat Gabrielle says
Always in awe of your ability to articulate nuanced ideas with so much compassion. Thanks Charles for publishing this and for being a beacon during these surreal times. Also – thank you for having a comments section; seeing so many people write in agreeance is so heartening at the moment. The digital version of a hug in a grocery aisle.
Merrilee Baker says
Charles, you have eloquently placed the discussions and arguments swirling around in my head into a coherent dialogue. When overtaken by the fear/grief of the Tolatarian state and loss of my freedom as we jump into the age of AI and smart everything the last few days I kept coming back embracing the unknown. I was walking along the beach and the waves were washing the sand dunes away near the path to the road. A big swell and high tide and the ocean will gouge away the path (uphill) to meet the road and houses. What about a tsunami, or meteorite? Let alone all the other slower societal and economic collapse stories unfolding already. Any of them could happen. I decided to focus on the ‘more beautiful world my heart knows’ or dreams. Thank you.
Also are you going to write on how we can change the economic structure worldwide in the face of huge unemployment, business collapses, Government relief in some countries resulting in billions of debt to countries – to whom is that debt owing and will it be repaid? Can we all refuse to pay back the banks now?
Rick Pursell says
Once again Charles, you pointed the way to a better world.
Emulating the caterpillar, dissolving into quantum soup within its chrysalis, you have exposed through your wisdom and view of the imaginal cells, the emerging butterfly, breaking through and beyond the shackles of restraint, to fly free, shining its beauty upon the world.
Let the Human Metamorphosis continue!
With love from Bali
Jane says
Dear Charles,
I know this is a big ask.
Could you supply a version of your beautiful essay as a précis, a single page of A4, say, 350 to 400 words?
I’m asking this as the lifelong friend of several dyslexics, with whom I’d love to share it.
Those of us who are wordsmiths easily forget how they struggle to absorb our Love from the written page.
It might be easier for you now a few days have passed since completing the longer version.
It might then turn into a powerful short talk on film, too.
Len Holloway says
Life is simple as we want to make it. We just don’t get it.We must remember, everything has to evolve. When we try to intercept ,(what has taken time to perfect )only problems arise . If we can learn from our mistakes, and move towards a better life what could be more simple. Thanks for your article ,it made a lot of sense.I will be passing your thoughts to my family and friends. Let’s make it a better world for all existence, not just the greed of a few.👌
Jay See says
Thanks Charles for the most meaningful read so far. You linked a talk by Dr Cowan about 5G – I’m wondering what you think about this? https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5506595. I know this is an important issue but is this a credible source? I see these discussions leading to such vitriol & polarisation in the wider & local community
Iris says
Thank you so much Charles. So well written, so well thought through, so many angles considered.
And for me too, many things you mentioned I had thought or sensed before.
It’s great to see it put in context, and with many more aspects to think about.
I loved this one particularly” Let’s remember how precious we all are and how precious life is. Let’s take inventory of our civilization, strip it down to its studs, and see if we can build one more beautiful.”
I used google to translate it into German to share with more friends. I’m not a great translator, but I will try to improve it a little bit myself in the days to come.
Or has any of your German friends already made a good translation?
Thanks so much for all. Iris
Laurie Young says
Hi, Iris. Thank you for checking in about this. Yes, we have a volunteer group of translators who have worked on essays for us and who Charles trusts to capture the spirit and nuance of his work. They are in the process of working on a translation for this one. We will have an official translation available as soon as they have time to complete it! A link will be provided on this page as soon as its ready. And we have also just posted a page with some German translations and the ability to sign up for newsletters coming from that group. It is here: https://charleseisenstein.org/german/
Greg Madison says
Thank you for a complex and rich piece. In response I am forming a broader perspective of what is currently happening, seeing it within the vast expanse of human history and the uncertain future that awaits our next steps.
Iris says
A German version, translated by google, unedited so far:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Rsz3xXJ8Y43MjTJ5PRV3VIVgzfV2bNNO
No Fanks. says
‘humanity is united in common cause, phenomenally rapid change’?
have you followed the abyssmally glacial pace of this species planet wide response to a man made disease? there is very little ‘phenomenal’ to speak of with these latest hi jinks in a relatively unbroken chain of disgusting and dismaying behaviours by an organidm that has unashamedly titled itself apex predator of what is now, SCIENTIFICALLY, classified as an earth in trouble.
personally, i hope this blessing takes a wholesome bite out of the scum that calls itself ‘humanity’. the body known by the same as ‘earth’ will cry no tears and will undoubtedly be the better for the loss
Sjoerd Kaarsemaker says
Dear Charles,
Aho! Thanks for your insightfull words. Very uplifting.
Kris says
Great article. I find IT a pity that the total solution to both «humanity»/compassion/infinitiv love aspect and to zoonoses/pandemics crisis is left out. Its very simple:stop tormenting, treating like a product, killing and eating animals.
Aerin says
I agree with you.
JOHN PHILLIPS says
Brilliant Charles. Very thought provoking. For me the most powerful idea is the ‘reset’. My own philosophies are centred around the levers that can make change happen. One such lever that you discuss is the Universal Basic Income. (http://www.commonsensethinking.co.uk/money.html)
This to me looks like a powerful and effective lever for long-term societal change. If we depend upon the powers that be, they are much more likely to tend towards totalitarianism. I can see few levers from current central powers that will provide a more lenient governance. After all, they move to protect their own position and have been moving in the other direction until this crisis.
So, if we are to see a ‘reset’, I see it coming from an inadvertent ‘mistake’ by the current authorities and economists. Such a basic wage for all would change the underlying processes of work and play. And once introduced it would be difficult to move away from.
I live in the UK and it is a crying shame that the Labour Party did not get into power in December. If it had, the election would have given it a mandate for radical change and I am sure Labour would have ushered in a basic wage for all – which is what we effectively have with the introduction of the 80% earnings for all employees laid-off now. How important for the world was that election now?
The UK could have paved a new way forward, and funnily enough, Jeremy Corbyn had exactly the right credentials and viewpoint to make a post capitalist society work with his innate humanitarian views.
I have also long argued that technology can re-shape the world for the better. History tells us that for the last 3,000 yeas or so, most humans outside the ruling classes have lived a poor, often short, and sometimes unspeakable lives. There are very few societies that were successful in providing a ‘reasonable’ life for the many. Without technology, make no mistake we shall be back there very quickly.
I am sure many people think that moving back to a more ‘natural’ way of life is an answer. Unfortunately it is only possible for a tiny minority and those who either live in a non-populous place like New Zealand, or have extensive capital available to create their own space. For the rest of us there is simply not enough land to feed us all.
The way forward must therefore be through technology. I have long argued that humans are the ultimate toolmaker. Some animals also are toolmakers, but they have not progressed to our level. We like many animals are social. And it is this social aspect of our nature that drives almost everything we do and not our logical minds as we like to think. (see: The Human Contradiction http://www.commonsensethinking.co.uk/humancontradiction.html)
To found a new type of (non-totalitarian) society, it must therefore be based on technological improvement. This gives us a quandary. How do we lever technology in a society that is no longer based on winner takes all? Where will the drive to improve the technology come from? We are toolmakers, technology is just another name for tools, so we need to think hard how we can achieve this continuing improvement.
My own view is in the not too distant future, we shall create the ‘smart robot’ revolution. (http://www.commonsensethinking.co.uk/Resourcism.html) This is the turning point where we have created a robot smart enough (not sentient or anywhere near), to be able to re-create itself. This will not be an instant conversion of course, but as we approach this step-change, we shall realise that many of our needs can be met with very little human intervention. What is the timescale for the smart robot? Within 80 years I suspect, maybe a lot sooner, especially if we could see that it was the way forward in our new societal order. The world would then be full of smart robots that can do most things from farming, manufacturing, delivery, transport etc. The only thing that then makes economic sense is ‘Resourcism’ (http://www.resourcism.org/)
Resourcism is a new economic proposition that is fundamental to the world and what we can expect it to provide for us. Clearly, humans must make choices of how the resources are shared out. Perhaps a new more humane society that you address as one outcome, will be more suitable to creating such choices in a much fairer way than now?
JP
Mr says
I’ve been trying to say similar things. Your essay humbles my efforts – it was a beautiful thing to read and thank you for writing it.
Jenny Allen says
Charles, your brilliant comprehensive 360 enfolds the disease and the cure that I have been longing to hear. Your reader’s comments reflect many of my own feelings about how your writing and observations profoundly crack open the surface so I see the gifts inside. I am so grateful to you and your staff (and family). Quite frankly, I can’t (truly) LIVE without the beauty you share. Lots of Love.
Ben Turner says
Dear Charles,
Thank you for the deep insights. I Have have been prizing this time of pause and pondering how to begin exploring the different paths appearing in the wilderness.
Charles, I have to point out one very problematic area if this essay: the citation of the retracted article “Potential False-Positive Rate Among the ‘Asymptomatic Infected Individuals’ in Close Contacts of COVID-19 Patients” by G H Zhuang et al. The article is no longer available in the original and the author has stated there is an unspecified “sensitive” problem with it. I am disturbed by casting doubt on the substantiality, the reality of the coronavirus situation when the science and testing is really quite solid. It is fascinating to entertain the thought that this whole thing might be created out of whole cloth by fear and false positive tests, but the sensitivity and specificity of the tests developed in the US is quite good. As you point out, so much is unknown at this point, but the biggest part of the problem is we need more testing.
Thanks as always for your deep reaches into uncharted territory.
Kindly,
Ben
Maryam Ovissi says
“Some commentators have observed how it plays neatly into an agenda of totalitarian control. A frightened public accepts abridgments of civil liberties that are otherwise hard to justify, such as the tracking of everyone’s movements at all times, forcible medical treatment, involuntary quarantine, restrictions on travel and the freedom of assembly, censorship of what the authorities deem to be disinformation, suspension of habeas corpus, and military policing of civilians.”
This is so true and so many are afraid to speak to this …As a small business owner…I felt the “shaming'” that was happening of me staying opening although I have ample space for 10 people to come into a 2000 sq ft studio and practice yoga…I was called selfish and irresponsible. I see the imprints we are creating will have permanent events in our pysche and we will take another few years to unravel these “control valves” placed on us….do not leave your house…keep 6 ft distance…oh that’s not enough…make it 12 feet….don’t take anything from anyone…..The trauma is high and our recovery will take all our energy as well. Neighbors calling the police saying the neighbor kids are playing with each other….
“Covid-19 is like a rehab intervention that breaks the addictive hold of normality. To interrupt a habit is to make it visible; it is to turn it from a compulsion to a choice.”
This is a great gift befriending Covid-19 could give us…However, we are seeing increased trauma responses…the sheer fact the state of VA would make ABC store “essential” and to stay open…means that that there are habits will go wild and instead of being a rehab intervention…this may push us into addictive behaviour….my hope is what you are offering…..
“When the crisis subsides, we might have occasion to ask whether we want to return to normal, or whether there might be something we’ve seen during this break in the routines that we want to bring into the future. We might ask, after so many have lost their jobs, whether all of them are the jobs the world most needs, and whether our labor and creativity would be better applied elsewhere. “
Philippe says
7 out of 10
Just kidding, I dig it! Going to cough this up all over my social medias.
Jacqui Denomme says
Thank-you Charles for this ‘perfect’ article, in the sense that it spoke to many of the little alarm bells going off in my own mind these days even in spite of the fact that I feel like in some ways I have been preparing for this my whole life. (Except for not seeing my own beloved 3-year old grandson for almost 3 weeks now and feeling utter heartbreak when his mom tells me that he is actually, yes GRIEVING what he sees as the ‘loss’ of his friends. He is actually saying ‘my friends are lost, where are my friends?’. How to explain this to a 3-year old? This is breaking my heart more than anything.)
My big question early on is ‘aren’t we over-reacting to this?’ I SOOO much appreciate your thoughtful attention to the ‘conspiracy theories’ surrounding our times. I too ‘pay attention to the fact that they exist’ and feel like we ignore them at our peril as they express genuine possibilities. AND at the same time, I FEEL in my gut that these measures we are taking at the moment to social distance are right and good and I resonate with them deeply.
My life is already pared down to the joyous essentials, so I am personally ‘ok’. But lately I have been asking myself “to what lengths should we humans be going to keep ourselves alive?’ On a compassionate level of love and care for individuals, it seems as if we should pull out all the stops, but on a ‘species’ level, we are the only species on the planet that has this kind of high-level medical care that keeps patients alive far longer than nature would have them, left to nature’s own devices. This sounds terrible, I know and uncaring, but to discuss it from a place of love and care and to raise the question: ‘at what price?’ is something that I really think we need to talk about. I would rather take my chances and die early, and live a fully free and loving life, than do everything in my power to live as long as I can at the expense of the kind of societal controls that could be on our horizon. Just raising the question and knowing I am not the only one asking this, is helpful to me. I have long resonated with the idea of ‘terrain’ and ‘root causes’ with respect to health and medicine and love the analogy of saving the dying fish while also cleaning out it’s aquarium.
What I am FEELING these days, in Canada, is love. Love like i have never felt it before. All over the place. I feel like our citizenry is going along with these control measures because for some reason they FEEL right and good. Few people are afraid of the virus that I know, of getting sick themselves. They are rallying around service workers, trying to do their part to alleviate the strain on our health care system and workers. The FEEL is loving solidarity. My ‘feeling’ is that if these measures were contrary to our good, we would feel ‘off’ about them, say if we were told to walk across the street if we saw someone from a different nationality or something like that. We would NOT resonate with this, we would not all be on board. Something in the zietgeist of this situation has us all resonating from a place of love. When it is NOT love that we are feeling from our leaders, we will know it and feel it and respond accordingly. This gives me hope. It gives me trust. The bulk of us ARE feeling solidarity and as sense of ‘in this together’ which is incredibly ironic given how bodily separated we are. WHICH brings us to a broader and very interesting issue: our connectedness BEYOND our bodies. We ARE one with each other in ‘spirit’ as it were in spite of our being bodily separated. Technology joins us, but it is just the means to an end. We are ALREADY connected in our hearts, our technologies just demonstrate that and facilitate the outer expression of that inner oneness.
I am so glad for this little community of like-minded folks who are able/willing to ponder these great issues. There may be many more of us out there than we know and perhaps even a tipping point that will swing the balance towards a ‘More Beautiful World’ that is perhaps rushing towards us even in this moment. It may be that all we have to do is surrender to something wonderful that is already on its way.
Theodore T Wagner says
Kathleen O’Meara’s poem, ‘And People Stayed Home,’ written in 1869, after the famine
And people stayed home
and read books and listened
and rested and exercised
and made art and played
and learned new ways of being
and stopped
and listened deeper
someone meditated
someone prayed
someone danced
someone met their shadow
and people began to think differently
and people healed
and in the absence of people who lived in ignorant ways,
dangerous, meaningless and heartless,
even the earth began to heal
and when the danger ended
and people found each other
grieved for the dead people
and they made new choices
and dreamed of new visions
and created new ways of life
and healed the earth completely
just as they were healed themselves.
Roberta Werdinger says
A nice and relevant poem for these times. Just a little fact-check: Kitty O’Meara did not write this in 1869. She is still alive. I hope you enjoy finding out more about her here.
https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/a31747557/and-the-people-stayed-home-poem-kitty-omeara-interview/
Abigail McDougall says
Thank you so much Charles for expanding on and making sense of some random, or not so random words I wrote in my journal a week or two ago:
SURVIVAL vs. SACRIFICE
Presence
Witnessing
Acceptance
Insight
Isolation
A pause
Selfishness / Annihilation
Giving
The word for crisis from Greek, meaning “sift”, or, in other words “to re-evaluate”
STAY or GO
INTIMACY
– the thing we need the most- stripped away.
The faith needed.
Kevork Torosian says
Dear Charles,
This is incredibly lucid, no other word could summarize my astonishment with your work in general.
Please keep the flame on!
My very best wishes,
Kevork
Tami Kellogg says
This. Yes. Thank you.
The Rev. Stephen Kendrick, minister of First Church Unitarian Universalist in Boston, gave his sermon today over the radio waves of WERS 88.9, and said he found divinity within the irrepressible creativity of our human artistic spirit. And he also highlighted the opportunity of this astonishing pause, and concluded,
“Instead of ‘repent!’, I say, ‘repaint!'”
Matt J says
Excellent wisdom my friend. In fact, viral wisdom…..an illustration in adaptation and the proponent of the most infectious of all things….the infinite light of love. You can count me in sir!! I’ll be at the coronation!!
Diana Robbins says
Thank you Charles Eisenstein. I was waiting for your response to the corona virus pandemic. Your words always clarify and add depth to my own thoughts and feelings. It inspired me to write the following note to my children and grandchildren…..
“I sent you Eisenstein’s thinking about corona. It helped me put this in perspective. Each day I awake on our living planet now is a gift. I am 80years old, and if I get sick and die of this it will be okay…nobody’s fault…my time to go. I didn’t really think I would live to see the beginning of the big transition time, but here it is. I hope it makes us humans become more conscious and thoughtful, more loving, more accepting, and in awe of the wonders of life and the peacefulness of death. I want to stay home and die here in my right place with loved ones nearby and loving energy on gossamer threads coming from my loved ones far away. I hope you all stay well and will be part of the change toward a more loving, balanced, harmonious and connected way of life for all.”
Now I will read your essay again and look forward to more as we go along. Love, Diana
Lauren Chapman says
THANK YOU, for a breath truth in the midst of fear.
Duncan McClintock says
Thank you. May we choose wisely the myriad paths before us and come together for one nurturing communal hug.
Frances Blasquez Perren says
A piece be with you.
Don’t know if you’re killin me or giving birth to me.
I’m for using Pavarotti and kindness bombs (or whatever, what you said).
Thx from my heart for the enlightenment.
Fran
rabula publici says
Let’s ring the bells that still can ring,
and forget our perfect offering,
there’s a crack, a crack in everything,
that’s how the light gets in!
—Leonard Cohen
Matt Sage says
Beautiful.
Sophie says
Thank you for helping me open up to way more than I could currently consider.
So grateful for such balanced, open, rich views
and the Space…. holy soothing Space of “I don’t know”, of no black nor white, no short cuts nor by passing… the ground for life to express itself at a pace that has nothing to do with the instant survival response nor some clever cognitive firing.
I can fully appreciate how the opposite (be it the catastrophic hysteria or the glittery spiritual by passing) follows the road of fast consumerism by another “this is it” kind of answer, in which I dipped in too many times, leaving more frazzled, overwhelmed, confused and looping deeper in my own insanity.
More reads of “the Coronation” to be for another slow sip of the unknown, another small nudge within the crystallized, another gentle breath in the discomfort, another heart opening in the great Mystery, another bow in reverence to What is….
Thank you
Piyush Labhsetwar says
Very thought provoking article and a very inpiring ending. The study you cite for false positive rate is retracted and another blog you cite for inaccuracy of test falsely characterizes the PCR tests which are widely used in very predictable ways. Thanks
Colette St Jean says
Thank you so much for your visionary big-hearted writing Charles. I am very moved after reading your essay. As when I read your book ‘The more beautiful world […]’, some of what I read resonated with me in a way that ‘recognising truth when I hear it’ tends to do . And some of what I read were new concepts to ponder. Like others that have read this essay have said, I was hoping to read your take on current events for a while before you posted it, so I’m really grateful that you decided to share it.
I will certainly read it more than once. It is like a security blanket map to me – although it makes no promises, the honesty you shared is hugely reassuring & a gift to all that take the time to read it. Thank you for being you.
Barbara Kasmann says
Dear Charles, thank you, what I feel : Your thoughts are a crucial contribution to the CORONATION of the humans.
Nancy says
I am still reading and I feel very comfortable with much of this as I have been blessed to have been following Charles awhile now. I want to stop and share what I feel is a lovely brief story. (BTW I have done my share of hospice work and consider it a profound privilege. So I especially like the words regarding the denial of death and our loss of an adventurous joyful life.)
Like many, I have been You Tubing a bit. I especially enjoy the brilliant Kenyan Trevor Noah who took over for John Stuart on Comedy Central. His trips to Kenya to speak w his Granny are full of delight and wisdom.
He learned from her and I believe participated in, planting potatoes…..after death, the body would be buried, covered over and as they had little land, potatoes would be planted over the beloved. I doubt the powers that be in control now would ever allow this nor would we have the purity of body/soul to tolerate.
I love this vision of pushing up daisies and feeding the next generation.
As usual, thank you Charles and all for opening my eyes and heart a bit more. Feeling the richness of the loam of us ALL and this idea planet.
Nancy says
See no way to edit. My last line has maybe a Freudian slip…I did not mean an idea planet…but perhaps we are just an idea in a vast reality of ONENESS.
Roberta Werdinger says
I enjoyed this beautiful and carefully written essay and will take away much of it. I am also troubled by assumptions that seem to me hidden. I would like to bring this out of the collective unconscious where it usually flourishes and ask questions that I hope will help us go forward. Here goes:
WHO decides how to handle this virus? Whose values preside? And what is the decision process to get there? The audience for this kind of missive is mainly white, well-educated, and middle class or more. So am I; I am not trying to shame anybody here. I am asking: If you have decided that you don’t want to isolate yourself; you are open to your mortality, unafraid, unwilling to deprive yourself and your kid of human contact; unwilling to submit to centralized control… Do you have a right to decide that for others who don’t have much voice in society anyway? Are your values theirs? If you have cancer, and have decided you don’t want further treatment; you are ready to die surrounded by your loved ones… bless you on your journey. If you have a contagious illness and decide the same thing, resulting in you and your friends breaking quarantine, you are unwittingly exposing others to your values–values you agreed on and less privileged people didn’t… or, if they have, we may not know about it–because like it or not, we don’t move in the same circles.
Charles, you did a beautiful job here… I agree with many points, and do not mean to shame you by these words (a common problem nowadays). But I think this kind of writing would be so much more effective couched in a communal response that was issued by a group of elders, by people representing some of the under-represented groups of our society. There could be fruitful disagreement, out of which a stronger coalition could be made. And I am sure there would be many points of accord and solidarity, out of which more effective networks would be forged. You are asking for more community–I am suggesting it be implanted in the very important act of storytelling, of meaning-making.
Michael Stillwater says
Thank you for your lucid wisdom. I feel resonance with your understanding, and grateful for your willingness and courage to speak out what lurks in many hearts, but often not articulated or recognized.
JohnMM says
Charles, thank you! A profound and beautiful contribution to the potential of the moment!
Shannon says
Glad to see people reacting positively to this overly long meandering and honestly self-indulgent puff piece. While the author’s heart may be in the right place, he doesn’t seem to have given this much thought, but instead wrote down anything that came into his head in a rambling way that comes off as self-indulgent and shockingly ignorant of all the very real work millions of people around the world are doing to solve the laundry list of problems he cites as a basis for his very original idea that everyone should be nicer to each other.
Sky says
Thank you! So brilliantly and eloquently outlined the most important choices we’re faced with individually and collectively. I love your humble attitude and rich wisdom pulsating through every word.
Julian Crawford says
“Novel coronavirus pandemic” means “a new coronation for all.” – Stating the obvious. So hard to do. So elegantly expressed. Thank you.
Kitty says
Brilliant with your holistic view! Thanks to be distirubuted widely in ALL languages, i will start the french one, Love to you all!
Christine Pike says
“Rollout of 5G” link is not opening. I wonder why?
Laurie Young says
Hi, Christine. I just checked the link and it is working. It’s to a YouTube video. I wonder if perhaps the link or the linked page didn’t fully load the first time you went to it? Perhaps reload the page and try again.
Fanny Broholm says
Thank you Charles from all my heart. I really needed your loving voice and sense-making ability in this chaos. Thank you!
Cailin EDwards says
Thank you wonderfully perceptive and I really enjoyed the research revealing facts and the positive aspects of change…
Gerard Bullen says
Had heard of this guy, and when his essay popped up in my feed, I thought I’d take a look. Interesting stuff. Read the quote below. There is, however, a big difference between children dying of hunger and people globally dying of Covid-19. The difference? You know why the virus might get you – it’s chance, and out of your control. Then again, you do know that you’re not a child in a poor family, dying of malnutrition, so that’s alright then… Let them die.
Sad world, we live in… We only act for ourselves, not for others.
“Last year, according to the FAO, five million children worldwide died of hunger (among 162 million who are stunted and 51 million who are wasted). That is 200 times more people than have died so far from Covid-19, yet no government has declared a state of emergency or asked that we radically alter our way of life to save them.”
– Charles Einstein
We only act for ourselves, not for others.
Alex says
When bemoaning the CDC’s lack of guidance on alternative medicinal strategies, it’s good to consider why. The recommendation to use elderberry for example may be completely counter recommended:
“There are some data suggesting that COVID infection, especially later in severe illness, may have a significant cytokine surge causing or contributing to the pathology,” said David Cennimo, an infectious-disease expert and assistant professor at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. “I am not aware of data on elderberry and cytokines or COVID specifically.”
https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/mar/23/does-elderberry-make-things-worse-people-exposed-c/
Given elderberry’s role in boosting immune response, something that can exacerbate the effects of the virus as above, it’s far from obvious whether it might harm or help. The FDA has even been cautious about its NSAID recommendations due to possible unknown interaction effects. There is no malice in holding back recommendations for medicine, but much more so a duty of care.
Kathy says
This is a great read. Thank you for your unveiling and clarity for people.
We operate a food rescue nonprofit and have seen the state of emergency with hunger for years-
Also during the first 3 weeks of this have seen fear grip the hearts of our volunteers even in very controlled and safe settings disabling is to feed the hungry as we had been doing before this- now with an amplified need.
K-
Joyskitchen.org
Benjamin David Steele says
We might misunderstand some of the causal links. It might not simply be that there is something inherently control-oriented about civilization. Rather, civilization promotes infectious diseases.
This happens through the malnutrition and compromised health that has been common since the agricultural revolution. But it also comes from the concentrated populations of humans and other animals that acts as a breeding ground for new diseases to mutate. Even malaria probably originated in agricultural centers before spreading out into the wild.
It’s not merely aspiring ruling elite taking advantage of a bad situation or simply promoting some ideological vision of progress. That makes it seem too conscious and intentional. Research shows that places of high rates of infections and parasites also have high rates of conservatism and authoritarianism. It is a psychological response built into our biology from hominid evolution.
If we want to seek a truly free and democratic society, we will have to create a fully healthy society. Disease brings out responses of fear and anxiety with demands to enforce control, stability, and certainty. But most of the diseases we face are caused by our own behaviors. Most healthcare costs go to metabolic diseases caused by the heavy consumption of refined carbs, added sugar, seed oils, etc.
Consider that 88% of Americans suffer from some condition of metabolic syndrome: obesity, diabetes, fatty liver disease, heart disease, hypertension, etc. And consider that those infected and dying from COVID-19 are mostly those with metabolic syndrome. This is because insulin resistance is at the root of metabolic dysfunction and insulin is central to the immune system. About compromised immune functioning, there are other causal mechanisms as well related to diet and lifestyle.
We see health as a secondary issue. But maybe it’s the singlemost important issue. When we look to utopian visions of the future where progressive ideology has come to dominate, such as Star Trek: The Next Generation, what we see is a society that has solved the healthcare crisis, where healthcare is effective and available to all, where diets and lifestyle promote health instead of disease. People don’t seek right-wing authoritarianism because of the lack of infectious diseases and parasites that elicit such a deep-seated response.
We need to learn to think more carefully about what creates the conditions for the kind of society we find ourselves in.
Michelle says
Charles, thank you so much for putting into words what I have been feeling and thinking. You stated this so eloquently. Every word you expressed resonated so strongly with me. I am so grateful for your sharing this gift with us.
Josephine Gross says
Thank you, spot on. Can’t wait to see –and celebrate — what we will create from here. Excited and ready to be surprised.
norman douglas says
our identifiable thoughts justify our separate identities.
the will to get together cannot reinforce the reality that we are inextricably intra-connected.
ignorance of oneness is not an option.
awakening reveals only that we are not asleep.
control assumes many guises.
this comment is one of them, multiplied by as many eyes as reflect upon it.
thanks for sharing.
peace.
Raymond D. Powell says
Brilliant, as always, sir! You speak much of attempt to control, and how perhaps this is an approach that is not serving us. I believe this is true. It is also my firm belief that the only thing that will prevent a devolution of our global community into violence and chaos is for humanity to embrace Vulnerable Transparency at all levels of social coordination.
Protocol.Love proposes a means to do exactly that.
https://medium.com/@rayzer42/cogov-presents-a-digital-protocol-for-scaling-loving-kindness-1da6605f88d9
Anamar says
Brilliant, to say the least! Thank you so much, and my heart sang meeting another being conscious of our sovereign potencial and present call to its assumption. Blesses and all the best for you.
Newton Finn says
Who would have dreamed that the revolution we aging boomers thought, in our youth, was right around the corner, would suddenly burst open when we were geezers? We can never return to the ecocidal gerbil wheel we’ve been spinning in, by our own frenzied efforts, for the past 40 or 50 years. The first victim to succumb to the corona virus was neoliberal capitalism. And the only cure is some form of eco-socialism yet to be envisioned and embodied. In the interim, the space between the old world and the new, I suggest we crank this up and dance with wild abandon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=721JQZw6Spg
Joe says
I loved a lot of what you had to say. Especially that we should teach/learn/culture dying well. Second that if the virus kills those with conditions… what is really to blame for death, absolutely true.
But I did take issue with a few things. First, when you asked about whether 100k deaths is worth a month of social distancing? This doesn’t make sense as the prediction is that 100k die if we social distance, and 2million die if we don’t. It is like asking the question: is 2 million deaths worth not social distancing? You cant just mix and match predictions. These are not on the possible scenario lists.
Second being, slyly another question: will new pandemics arise during a prolonged period of isolation, helping make isolation perpetual? This is also nonsensical. How could a new pandemic start if we are already isolated?
Malcolm Clark says
Far and away the most balanced and comprehensive perspective yet on current events, couched in astute extrapolations to the current state of humanity at this Moment in history. It reads like a manifesto for humanity by humanity – what a ‘we-are-all-one-of-us’ world needs now. Thanks for such an extraordinary effort, my brother!
Carlos F Rodriquez says
WOW… Beautifully written!
We are undergoing an “Evolution-Revolution.” This revolution of evolution is profoundly necessary to help with a much-needed course correction for our humanity. My hope is that we embrace the Love we are capable of and manage fear to choose wisely our future path for all our “Freedoms.” Without Freedom and Liberty – we will not survive.
Kami says
Thank you so much for being Charles Eisenstein! Your words are a breath of fresh air, as always.
I’m so happy to see all these comments, so many people!!! I love you all! ❤️
Brianne says
THANK YOU for this. For articulating my thoughts so beautifully. I am sharing this with as many as I can in hopes that it will open their eyes to a new perspective/alternative to the fear they are currently overtaken by.
Jason Guzak says
Thank you and although there appears to be no clear path your thoughts and words are well weighted. They help us understand what it means to be human, free to pursue liberty and not fearful of death.
Hans says
That is the best article I have ever read. I am deeply grateful this gift of perspectives. It is a master piece covering oceans of information in a condensed and logical manner. You are truly gifted. I thank you from my Heart.
Tracey says
Dear, Charles
I’ve been looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts and rumination on the current situation. And I’m very grateful for you sharing your views here. It’s always comforting for me to hear you articulate what I can’t quite manage. I usually can’t manage it as I get too emotional, too angry, too upset, too attached to feeling like I’m not being heard so in the end I’m ranting!!
Yesterday I felt very heartened and even buoyed after reading your essay. Today I’ve gone back to my frothing, explosive, almost erupting frustration and anger. And my deep all pervasive sadness. The repetitive thought for me now is
‘What can I do? What can WE do, to mobilise ourselves and put an end to this craziness?’
While I wholeheartedly believe that this could be time for reflection (I don’t know if you said that exactly!) and that the re-evaluating of what we do need, or can live without, is a welcome opportunity for all of us. However, I can’t stop the nagging anxiety that feels like it is scraping my bones, rattling through my bloodstream and literally making me feel sick.
Love is the answer. I know that. I feel that. But nothing about how this is being dealt with on a global/governmental level is the least bit loving or compassionate. And so I’m struggling.
Yes, there are great acts of kindness and compassion flourishing. Community spirit blooming, people uniting. But my sense is that the unity lies in the agreement that we must ‘fight’ this together. I don’t mean to disparage people’s efforts, it’s amazing how people have instantly stepped up and put themselves forward to support and help others. I love that. And I also get a sense that the majority are in agreement with this imposed incarceration, for the greater good. That’s niggling me. It’s triggering me. I’m struggling to support the general idea that being shut away from each other is for the greater good. I’m struggling to get behind the effort in ‘fighting ‘ this virus..
Quite apart from the fact that it’s almost impossible for me (or most people) to actually help anyone right now!! We have been ordered to stay within 2km of our homes, only leave it to buy essential foods – and wait in the eternally long queues to be able to even get inside the now barricaded shops. That we can exercise once a day, but close to home. The buses have all but stopped. Parks, public gardens are off limits.. so it’s almost impossible for me to offer to shop for anyone, take their dog a walk, run errands. There is almost total prohibition on our every move.
And I’m refusing to get on board with all the online stuff. I’ve been stubborn about that for a long time. But now I’m really digging my heels in. I feel I’m being forced to have a virtual life.. even virtual tours of the Botanic gardens are being offered. I mean WTF!!
So some of my persistent frustrations and thoughts are:
What can I do to challenge this status quo? There is a strong urge in me to peacefully protest against this withdrawal of ALL of my civil liberties. (But a real risk of someone calling the police, and the thing that’s stopping me is that I need to take care of my son)
How can I maintain my mental health, my equilibrium or a sense of being grounded in this world if I can’t even go for a walk
in nature? Or feel free?
How can I teach my son about love, about holistic health, about good choices, about trusting in our bodies, about values, in such an unhealthy situation?
Actually I don’t know how to parent in this situation. My son loves being outdoors, he doesn’t so much mind being solitary, but he needs nature: the sea, the trees, the soil under his feet. This is how he thrives. I don’t want to lead him down a ‘virtual path’ of life. Not for a few weeks, and even less for the predicted 13 weeks, and it’s being touted that it could be more., (I feel my chest tightening, and my breathing becoming laboured even as I write that)
The death phobia feels like it is killing me, on a spiritual and emotional level. I’ve thought several times over the last week that I don’t actually want to live.. in a culture which fears death so
much. And this situation is exaggerating that to phenomenal levels. I don’t want life at any cost.
I feel my right to die has been taken away. And I’m furious about that.
I don’t want to bring my son up in a world where our civil liberties can be taken at the drop of a hat. I want my son to have LIFE, to be free, to feel joy, to know sorrow, but to have choice over his own life. I’m scared that this won’t be the case. And I feel I’m doing him a disservice by not making a stand about this.. (Not to mention my fear and even loathing at the thought of enforced immunisations)
I’m grieving. That’s the only way I can describe this. I’m sure lots of people are. But I’m not grieving for the loss of cafes, restaurants, shops, ability to fly or even going to large events. I’m grieving for the loss of freedom to roam, to walk, to be outside in nature, to connect with others. I’m grieving that I can’t see people in the flesh, and if I do want to see them it has to be on a screen, even although they don’t live that far from me. I’m in a state of grief, of disbelief, of utter helplessness as to how to change this situation. And so I’m in denial. This cannot be happening. There was life not so long ago, I saw it, felt it. It can’t be true that it’s gone. I can’t survive without that ‘life’. I wake in the morning with a dread in my stomach when I realise I’m still in Groundhog Day , and the new virtual life pressing for attention. I am grieving for real life. Pulsing healthy life, with death also part of that,
And the irony is that this is a death sentence, for many, many more than will contract any virus, this is the death of huge swathes of people. I’m feeling overwhelmed by that thought, but I can’t shake it. This incarceration will kill many people. And I feel at a loss as to how I can step up and be a voice in the dark void.
I want to believe it’s the space between stories, that the old story must die for a new story to be birthed, but for all I believe that, I feel the life being sucked from me. And every day the grip is being tightened. The threats are hanging over us. Be prepared for further lockdowns, tighter controls.. we are told.. WHY??
I’m amazed that people have just accepted this imprisonments so easily, are doing what they are told, are following the rules (I’m most amazed at myself for doing all
of the above!!) and YET there are new threats hanging over us every day..
There is a sense of being bullied, being shamed into submission, being treated like fools, being patronised, being guilt tripped, being beaten. And still more threats.
None of this makes any sense to me. On any level. And I’m trying really hard not to go down the rabbit hole of conspiracy. Nor the explicit blaming of the powers that loom over us. But such drastic measures are being taken that I feel I have to speak up!!
Where to do that.?
How to do that?
How to gain strength in numbers?
Who to trust?
How to survive in a world which is squeezing every ounce of motivation to live, in the name of saving lives??
I need a lifeline, I need a purpose, I need to find my role here, to be in service to life, to health, to death, and to everything in between. But I don’t think accepting this situation and riding this wave is my place in all of this.
I need a cuddle. Not a virtual
one (and I’m very lucky to get lots of beautiful cuddles daily from my son) from a strong wise person. I need to know that others feel this too. I don’t want to get to the level of acceptance, that comes with grief., I’m scared of accepting this state of affairs. And I’m panicked at the thought that I don’t have a choice.
I’m also wondering what message all of this holds for me.. what life will be like afterwards… where can I go to live and how will
I live that will give me resilience should (or when) this happens again.
I’m thinking out loud. I’m looking for my tribe. I’d love some ideas or feedback on how we can make our voices of dissent be known, be heard, or at least felt by others who feel the same., I’d like to teach my son by example how to utilise anger, frustration and helplessness and to turn it around to feel empowered and in service to love.
Sending huge love and thanks. Tracey
Viv says
Hello Ttacey,
I have no answers for you, I wish I did, but I do know that with your words you have touched that in me which is beyond words. Many will have been touched in the same way too but would probably have felt, much like I initially did, and thought, what can I possibly say to that? Many caring hearts would have wanted to reach out and simply let you know that you are not alone. This is all I can offer. It’s hardly adequate but it’s not an empty space and it’s given as naturally as the rain falling.
Alain Duguay says
Been waiting patiently for the powerful gift of words in these times of uncertainty. Grateful to have stumbled upon this wide open lens exposing these different perspectives through all the angles, thank you so much Charles for sharing your wisdom, I truly needed to read and FEEL this!
Savannah Hanson says
Charles,
I adore you. Your commentary ties together all the loose ends that have been swimming in this consciousness, trying to find a way to land. Thank you for so clearly delineating our choices and for being such a voice for sanity, compassion, connection, community. The pandemic clearly includes taking control to absurd levels and creating an environment where world wide attention is focused on illness/ death/ separation. Where attention goes, energy flows and I truly wonder how many will die from stress, how many people, children will be the victims of increased violence, how addiction will increase, how many will die deaths of despair, which statics proof will increase every day the shut down continues. To me it is no surprise this virus is hitting the lungs. As we become ever more separated, the grief we carry as a species becomes ever vaster. Time to grieve the greed, the violence, the environment destruction, the wars, the genocide, the corrupt corporations and politics. After the collective grief, perhaps we will come together as One and truly create a new earth. I see signs of this flourishing all around me, mixed in with the chaos and fear. Yes, which fork in the road will we take? Thank you for contributing to the possibility of a new beginning where the world will know peace, resting on a foundation of Love. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
with so much love.
savannah
Martin Knox says
Full of good sense and right thinking.
Jill Garsden says
Dear Charles,
I have no words to tell you how much I value yours, particularly in this essay. It expresses everything that I have consciously thought and unconsciously felt. It’s so important. I’ve already shared it on my Facebook page, and after a day or two I think only one of my contacts has actually read it. I wish more would, because we need a real (as opposed to virtual) caring community which is willing to ask the hard questions, suspend willingness to accept whatever authority appeals to them, be it mainstream medical or alternative conspiratorial, and truly embrace and value the well-being of the whole of our humanity, not just the physical part. I’m so “over” the fear-mongering, the finger-pointing, the division and separation, the limitations and restrictions, the insistence on a “right” perspective on all of this. Living with uncertainty is not easy, but above all others you give me the courage and inner peace to do so. Thank you.
Camilla Fadum says
Thank you!
Sophie says
I needed this. I love to see what I feel expressed so clearly. I’d love to get this over to everyone but it’s so long , n’élabores and unpalatable for the majority. Us , educated white , westerners can relate but what about all the future victims of the controlling measures that would need to hear this message. Maybe some short videos ? Some dialogues like in Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, ? I would love to share this around but it’s so long . Thanks and as usual you are an inspiring and courageous person that I highly respect. .
Gigi says
Will you marry me? ❤️🤣
Kay says
Thank you Charles for your insightful words. What you say often helps me to step back and look honestly at what is going on around me. What you have spoken about “othering” and its inherant violence has profoundly shifted my perception and liberated me in so many ways and for this I am truly grateful.
It feels like the “pause” and physical distancing coronavirus has created an opportunity for a deeper connecting and opening up into myself. This is causing me to open up and be more authentic with those fewer people I am interacting with and appreciating things more. Perhaps, paradoxically in some ways we are connecting more, and are learning to appreciate the importance of all forms of connection, especially physical, personal and ecological.
As you invite in your essay, it feels important to focus and act on what we wish to emerge within this space. Thank you for your continuing contributions to transforming our culture
Leonid says
Well done! Most of us in Russia are of the same opinion.
Doreen M Tanenbaum says
Your “Coronation” gift came right at the time I am writing curriculum for children 2 to 5 year old’s, refocusing on the need to honor “Mother Earth.” Your work is thoughtful, insightful and always honoring the reader by never assuming their perceptions. A real piece of communing and exploration.
Doreen Tanenbaum-N.C.
Osiris Montenegro says
Thank you Charles I agree very much with your observations, and as a fellow man I add that an imminent ingredient in the complexed solution is for men across the board to reclaim our feminine nature and integrate feminine values into our way of being. We must bring a feminine perspective into focus and implement feminine values to heal the socio-economic perils of the masses.
James Sutton says
Hi Charles Eisenstein
This is the first time I came across your work and in short come to the immediate conclusion that whilst not perfect, you are the greatest living philosopher that I know of. Well done. You managed to grasp the totalitarian threats far greater than I, currently a paranoiac in that regards, yet you choose to brush aside that fear as if it can be overcome, and yet I am not as yet convinced by your platitudes I respect that you give many people hope in this fast-moving time.
It remains my conclusion on all I have seen that COVID19 will lead to the fall of civilisation. Our best hope to prevent this, you recognise I think, is to reverse the lockdowns, allow the children to live a little, develop proper immunity to this threat which is currently not a childhood disease but could become so – those (measles, mumps, whooping cough, smallpox etc) have been solved by vaccines but others (common cold, influenza) are more similar to SARS-COV-2 than them and we should not expect a vaccine panacea, nor should politicians tell us to despite the admirable efforts being made. Instead, we should accept an end to death-postponements for many as a small price to pay for protecting our children in the face of a looming new childhood disease, COVID20, with the multitude of new strains ready to expand. We must stop this King Canute-like attitude and instead relax and let our immune systems do the work. Sorry if some die, but prevention is better than cure, and we need herd immunity this season. It is better to rebel against the lockdowns and protect our children against next year than to put false hope in the vaccine that will not be delivered. Sadly, the increase in the totalitarian regime that you advocate embracing in good faith will, with your important role in human philosophee lead to pacifism when we needed activism.
God bless you, you idiot!
Best regards
James Sutton
Barbara Sinclair says
Charles, Everything you write or speak seems to come from such a deep place of authenticity and a search for Truth. I have read through your essay three times now. I want everyone to read it and drink in its wisdom. Thank you for sharing your beautiful gift and your open heart with the world.
Manu Sharma says
Hello Charles,
We met six years ago in India at the Economics of Happiness event where I introduced myself as the person responsible for creating your Wikipedia entry! I like your title, this pandemic is indeed about coronation of humanity. It is about Ascension. On my blog I explain how this event will catapult humanity towards the age of benevolence.
Manu
Jeff Nobbs says
My favorite post on coronavirus, yet.
Nicole says
This is the best analysis I’ve read so far and I’m utterly speechless about all the topics you covered. A warmhearted THANK YOU from Switzerland with much love. May we all take this chance to heal a lot of things that need to be healed … and may we all live in peace, gratitude, true abundance and with benevolent compassion and understanding for each other!
Jagg says
Excellent essay. You have articulated many of my perspectives. Let us hope that more people can vibrate at similar positive frequencies.
Thanks.
Gina says
Hi! Thank you so very much for this excellent article. I am a doctoral acupuncture student in California and was surprised to see the info in your article about Cali acupuncturists being forced to shut down. I emailed one of my professors about this in case it was a new development in recent days that I wasn’t aware of.
His response: “Thankfully acupuncturists are able to practice right now. Acupuncturists are primary care providers and considered essential medical care. However, many acupuncturists, especially ones that focus on wellness or sports injuries, have either stopped practicing or are doing telemedicine/zoom sessions at the moment. This is to help with flattening the curve and/or to protect themselves or their family.
Practitioners I know that are treating Covid-19 are doing so from a distance and providing herbal formulas that can be express mailed to the patient or picked up by someone else. This was true in China as well during the Wuhan outbreak. Practitioners that were not treating in hospitals as MDs were prescribing herbal formulas and diagnosing via WeChat.
If we did not currently have a shortage of PPE for medical providers I can guarantee that many more practitioners would have their practices open and running at the moment, and it is likely that once we have done our part to flatten the curve and slow the spread of this pandemic there will be a number of acupuncturists and herbalists working to help patients recover from this illness. Pacific College clinic shut down specifically to avoid increasing the spread so patients at risk of dying will be able to get the ventilator support they need.”
Again thank you so much for your essay, it really hits the nail on the head in terms of the many complex layers of physical and metaphysical manifestations that are playing out right now. Very grateful that a friend sent me this article and that I’m now aware of your many areas of study, can’t wait to dive into your deep body of work!
Sincerely,
Gina
Astrid Maclean says
I came across this article on Facebook and am so glad to have found you and read it! It completely echos my own thoughts, but puts them into words so much better. I hope this will be widely shared as a much needed antidote to so much that can be found on social media right now. Thank you!!
Nayeli Garci-Crespo says
Your essay expresses my thoughts on the subject almost perfectly, but expressed far more subtly and beautifully than I could have ever managed. Thank you. I was not familiar with your writing and look forward to reading your books.
mike says
Hi charles
After reading your very, in my opinon lenghty synopsis .I was hoping you would get to the point , but I read on and on hoping you would . You offered many ideas for everybody to think about but I found sometimes you were too diplomatic afraid of offending someone or some institution which for me didnt come across as authentic . Authenticity is something you emphasis a lot ,in your talks and I have listened to many of your talks that came from the heart. because I can see you and listen to your voice and body language which is a lot more authentic and your present . In my opinion you are better at speaking than writing. Your talks for me are from the heart I can feel it . Your writing is sometimes too mental and thought out that you are thinking too much about what you are going too write, not really from the heart . Please dont take this personal . Its just how I feel about what you want to convey. And there are some many good points about these times we are all going through in your essay . A lot of people repeat the same stuff , this could be better and that could be better , but everyone of us is handling this in the best way we know how and none of us have the answers and I am fully with you that not knowing brings many answers so we should shut up our mental chatter ,mind and let our hearts guide us and listen to what our hearts are telling not our egos. Thank you again for your many inspirations about how we can work together for a better world .
mike form ireland
Marko Brajovic says
Dear Charles, fantastic approach and magnificent coronation
Bettina says
Aloha Charles,
thank you for writing this great article. We are living in such delicate times and I admire your way of navigating through the depths of all. Including the unknown.
I resonate and agree with all your are expressing. Exciting times as in the end who knows what is in store for us as a human family. I do sense indeed that we are all together creating each moment.
Greetings from Hawaii
nathan waks says
Thank you so much. Finally a voice of considered reason yet hope amid the deluge of rubbish.
I will share and encourage others.
Ed Hendrick says
I doubt the human instinct to tribalism can ever be overcome. But it’s nice to hope.
Loy Rego says
Profound and meaningful. recognising and reinterpreting the “black swan” as a new possibility and opportunity. Let us rise to the occasion.
N says
Wonderful essay, Charles. It IS comforting to know that others put so much thought and energy into “issues” like this. The problem–as I have a feeling you’re questioning yourself in your salvo–is “Now that the rope has snapped.”
It hasn’t. Not even close. Frogs are still boiling.
I hope this criticism helps.
N
Julia Dutta says
Hi Charles,
As an Indian, steeped in philosophy, death, and life come together. The minute I am born, that same moment, death becomes a reality. Whether we wait for 80 years or 8 seconds is immaterial. The fact is, life and death are two sides of the same coin.
Yet, I am amazed at how, actually, it is not really the virus, but the fear of death, which you have brought out so beautifully, that is causing this extreme state of existence.
As you rightly said, “According to Lissa Rankin, M.D., air pollution increases risk of dying by 6%, obesity by 23%, alcohol abuse by 37%, and loneliness by 45%.” – I feel the world hs gone truly mad!
We are not aware yet, what the extent of damage will be, but when we went into Lockdown on 25th March, 2020, I tweeted, that it seems our country Leaders are anxious to bring the economy to its knees.
Many thanks for this extraordinary and very detailed article, sent to me by my dear friend from the U.K, I remain grateful for this and just needed to add, my point of view, and philosophy thereof.
Best wishes, take care,
Julia Dutta, India
Jimena says
WOW! SOULSALVE❤️💧❤️
Your transmission touched me deeply. I needed you. Thank you. I too have been receiving and pouring out with grief, love, intimate inquiry, songs, permission prayer poems, sacred invitations for anew rebirth is here and we are at the crowning crossroads in this sacred ‘40enta’ 9 3/4 birthing through ‘the ring of fire’ canal.
It is excruciating and ecstatic all ways always some are birthed, some die, and some are reborn and some wait in dr Seuss waiting line…
Thanks for sacred mystic medicine that is pouring through you and you sharing your sacred masculine light with us. Deeply received❤️Grateful. To all.
To you or anyone on your team my heart and hands are available to collaborate in whatever wants to move through us together. {I did read the guidelines, suggestions on this site and see the invitation for joining the FB group!}I am currently working on my first book that is at the core about birth, death, and resurrection right here on this blessed earth. And if you or anyone feels called to reach out and would love to connect. If not blessings your sacred way✨!
Sailesh Rao says
Dear Charles,
I wonder if you might accept some feedback regarding this heartfelt essay. You write,
“What information might we be blocking out, in order to maintain the integrity of our viewpoints? Let’s be humble in our beliefs: it is a matter of life and death.”…
In that spirit, I wonder if you might watch this video by Dr. Michael Greger listing the zoonotic origins of infectious diseases:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_ppXSABYLY&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=NutritionFacts.org
It might help elucidate the carnivorous framing that you are using in the essay when you write:
“Covid-19 will eventually subside, but the threat of infectious disease is permanent.”
Is this threat really “permanent” or is it a choice stemming from humans slashing billions of animal throats unnecessarily each week?
Just in case you doubt Dr. Greger’s credentials, the scientific reference list is here:
https://brandfolder.com/s/q7nyq6-cc6c08-57sux2
I trust that helps!
I wish you the best,
Dr. Sailesh Rao.
Mark Berger says
A wonderful, thoughtful essay. I love how Charles talks so much about the problem of living from a place of Separation with life. This is the challenge of living a physical, incarnated life.
Kelly says
You wrote 8,997 words and didn’t use any of them to discuss how this pandemic is the result of how we exploit animals, and that we can avoid this if we stop needlessly breeding, killing and eating animals, and encroaching upon their terrains.
What this pandemic is showing more than anything is how grotesquely committed humans are to continuing to cause immense suffering to animal beings, and then when the deathly consequences to our own species is the result, commit even further to talking *around* it, and bleat on about all the ways we can change for the better, except of course in the most fundamental ways, which would require us to reflect on our role in this pandemic, and how easily it could be avoided, by simply stopping exploiting animals. That’s the main issue, and I’m beyond sick and tired of NOT reading about it.
David McRae says
Thanks Charles
Beautifully, insightfully written, whoever wrote it through you, if that’s the way it is.
I wrote about the inevitable confrontation of our fears of death in a blog two weeks ago:
https://mcraehealth.com.au/a-virus-pandemic-is-challenge-enough-you-dont-need-anxiety-as-well/
You have gone into it much more.
I see the entire pandemic drama as more about ecology than sanitization and medicine. Our internal ecology and ecology of our relation to our environment, fellow creatures and whole world.
Matthew w Scott says
Thank You Charles—you have a beautiful mind and a more beautiful heart–I hope your words and ideas are spreading like a virus.
Susannah says
Yes, truly eloquent. And you happily sit on the fence I feel. The story goes … Jesus goes into the temple on the Sabbath, and turned over the tables of the money changers. … He was raging angry, because ‘God’s law’ had been broken. Have not God’s law been violated by the genocide, and all the other ‘cides’ by the 1%? Are we ‘justified’ in just sitting back and taking it? Where is our Spiritual wrath? Yes we ‘lesser’ mortals have behaved pretty badly at times, but are we to remain enslaved by the ‘overlords’. And yes, we will all die … to this earthly body. We may be greeted well when we die, we may not …… enough I hear myself say! I’m rabbiting on like CE but without the eloquence!
Kurijn says
Thank you very much Charles!
The message you’re sketching so honestly here is such a very welcome and necessary focus, accentuating the real and promising options we have, not just based on hopeful expectation. I’m sharing it further.
In many aspects you’re touching, I got reminded of various texts that make part of a larger body of information, that is trying to find its way in the world. Here are a few references:
-The Separation – https://www.newmessage.org/the-message/volume-1/one-god/the-separation
-“The source of all fear is the belief that you are temporary, that death awaits you and that everything you value and everything that is meaningful to you can be taken away at any moment.” https://www.newmessage.org/the-message/volume-5/wisdom-greater-community-volume-1/happiness-in-the-world
-And, also providing a perspective in a bigger context, I recommend to anyone to read up on the Great Waves of Change: http://greatwavesofchange.org/
Bernard says
Thank you Charles. I have enjoyed every single line of this essay. I feel like I don’t need to read anything else on this topic for a moment. I would like to keep these words and thoughts with me, meditate on it, sleep with it, and run with all these meaningful ideas…
I have post it on my website and shared it with my good friends, in English and in French.
Many thanks. With love. Bernard http://www.permasens.org
Renee Pienaar says
Good evening from South Africa,
It seems as though Covid 19 came at the perfect time possible and we should embrace it. We are indeed at the crossroads of change and hopefully the world will take the crossroad intended for us to take during this Coronation process.
In a strange way, this essay sums up the roller coaster thoughts in my mind. It cancels all of it out.
Brilliant.
Thank you Charles Eisenstein
Nina says
The one thing I disagree with in this article is he thinks a basic income is a new good idea. We already have that. It is called welfare, disabilty and employment insurance. Until we rid the planet of warmongering which is always for profit and the stock market and the federal reserve which causes inflation and steals people’s earning in many hidden ways, we will keep seeing starving and suffering people.
Andy Herbert says
This is the dumbest commentary I’ve read about the coronavirus. I’m glad your views aren’t considered sensible in the arena of public health policies.
Nina says
Oops, I messed up and said ‘he’s instead of ‘Charles’ in my first sentence. Seems disrespectful which is the last thing I would want to do.
shan says
Global weather changes tear-a-wrist threats and this now are all more than likely engineered to get us to “elicit consent” in a Chomskyan paradigm. Not sure ow this is an improvement …
Accepting Big Brother however benevolent and well-intentioned and throwing away “Democracy” which never was and never worked anywhere is a leap out of the frying pan into the flames ….
But yes nothing that we have now is worth keeping almost; so melt down and recast
Article is well-written covering almost all possible bases but not taking any sides
Astute :]
yep >> “The measures being instituted to control Covid-19, likewise, may end up causing more suffering and death than they prevent.”
Martin says
When this passes we need to bring back the Wesson oil party. (An old fraternity party style where everyone gets covered in vegetable oil and jumps into a big pile.) Dionysius in ^( was theatrical version. 🙂
Annie says
I agree with Mike Ireland Charles. After sleeping on this essay and listening to some of your podcasts the impression I am left with and that I share is too much thinking, lost in the nooks and crannies of thought forms. Predicting so many possibilities is it really helpful. It’s Mother Earth payback and we need to get about acting in the now for responding and reingaging in right relationship. The shutdown has been a blessing for Mother Earth. How can we further these benefits is the most crucial takeaway
Art Goodtimes says
Charles, I can’t forego adding my voice to the chorus saluting your Coronation essay, even if this string is far more than you probably want to read.
But not since I became a student of mountain wise woman Dolores LaChapelle have I been so impressed with a deep thinker who gets it. I’m buying your books, and recommending you to everyone.
So much of my life work as a poet and local elected official has run in the same veins as the tropes of your essay.
Thank you, my new mentor. What a blessing your work is.
Art Goodtimes
BDBinc says
Hi Charles
Everything is always changing( expect the changeless that is aware of the changes).
The fear response and the govts draconian changes ( loss of freedom and livelihoods)are contractions and it is not action from love but from fear. Its wrong action. The govts seem to be going into in a Nazi redux period.
We did not make these changes the govt did. We do not want ( medically unsound)social distancing regulations and economic destruction. The collective ego mind is tightening its stranglehold grip, if we do not wake up we could destroy ourselves.
I think there is a problem saying the many deaths are caused by the specific alleged 5th sars corona virus medically speaking that is incorrect as if they were tested and negative for influenza, a different corona virus same and similar portions of rna and other of the many respiratory disease (in the flu season)then one could probably say that it attributed NOT caused by.There are complex medical issues that many without expertise and understanding have been writing about, mostly parroting the claims of the mainstream media.
God gave you a reasoning mind.Not just a conditioned one that seeks to accept unacceptable changes.
Muriel Strand says
Which matters more, the calendar length of life or the fullness with which it’s lived?
If I haven’t really lived my very own life to the best of my ability, I can’t be ready for my passing.
jo says
now I know there is an alt left that is at least as scary and dangerous as the alt right and will do about as much to help the planet as the alt right and trump and his administration…
Alexa Forbes says
I absolutely love this – especially the last part about the gift of coding and shared new information this might offer.
Konstantin says
Thanks for the great article!
Though there is one thing that needs to be corrected I think.
You write “Of those analyzed, less than 1% were free of serious chronic health conditions. Some 75% suffered from hypertension, 35% from diabetes, 33% from cardiac ischemia, 24% from atrial fibrillation, 18% from low renal function […] Nearly half the deceased had three or more of these serious pathologies. […] Should we blame the virus then (which killed few otherwise healthy people), or shall we blame underlying poor health?”
People having those deseases in the old age doesn’t mean they have a poor health or had an unhealthy lifestyle. In fact, looking at life expectancy the Italians are one of the healthiest nations in the world. The thing is its impossible to “be healthy and die ’cause of the old age” (obviously we’re not talking about “external” death reasons like injuries etc). All those deseases listed are aging associated. As part of the aging process organs and systems wear out, their function decrease and at some stage deterioration reaches a point classified by medicine as one of those deseases (or conditions, rather). The death is caused by whichever organ (or multiple organs) fails first. No matter how healthy lifestyle one lead he is likely to develop one or a few of those conditions and die because of them – though later than the one with unhealthy lifestyle. Those “death reasons rates” are true for developed countries, in developing ones a lot of deaths are due to infections (poor hygiene and sanitaion), malnutrition, etc.
“Of the roughly 150,000 people who die each day across the globe, about two thirds die of age-related causes. In industrialized nations, the proportion is much higher, approaching 90%. With improved medical capability, dying has become a condition to be managed. Home deaths, once commonplace, are now rare in the developed world.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death#Cause
Bob says
Konstantin, the perspective you articulate so thoroughly belongs to the dominant narrative of health and dying, and without putting words in Charles’s mouth I believe he’s speaking from a different place. Thinking aloud here…Chinese medicine regards each person as having an inherited endowment of stored potential for life, called jing (essence). When the jing is consumed, the person dies. I wonder if it is possible for someone to live free of chronic health conditions and simply one day know deep in their bones that their time is imminent. I have heard stories of people knowing it was time to die (like the Buddha). Is it possible that this, and not being overcome by a chronic condition, is what dying should properly look like for a human being? Perhaps the normalcy of what you describe is less an insight into biological reality than simply how very well adjusted we are to a profoundly sick world. The last sentence you quoted, about home deaths being rare in the developed world, is a very sad fact to me. There are esoteric traditions that would regard most nursing home patients as being already dead in some sense, with the rest of them dragging on like a zombie. This is the dubious fruit of our quest to technologically prolong life at all costs.
DNPric.es says
Nice poetic essay. Wow. Yet, when it comes to decisions, stats above all. According to Office for National Statistics, Britons are as healthier as never before:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending20march2020
In particular, check their Figure 1.
Ryzal says
To anyone who wants to reader this in Reader Mode version 😃 : https://readermode.io/read/huzufJYNgE5f
BDBinc says
There have been a few medical experts that have tried to stop the fear mongering .Fear vs data.The way the information is presented can be misleading.The deaths you believe are caused by SARS-Con 2 ( not SARS-Con with nt 89.9 same rna?!!!)may not be.I think after considerable research it is a hoax for totalitarian global govt and one world currency the economy of this world is run by Banking cabal that then controls the govts it loans money to. There are too many lies being told and too much fear being created by those lies.
Fear vs data.
“Professor Walter Ricciardi, an advisor to the Italian Health Ministry, observes that the high death rates there may reflect the way that deaths are recorded. “The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die … with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus,” he has said. “On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 percent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 percent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity—many had two or three” (Newey, 2020). Pre-morbidity refers to having serious health issues prior to the onset of a disease.”
Cecilia says
“Death is a portal to love”, “love that death liberates”. Really?
This is not sublimation but sheer avoidance of pain. Grief can lead to a new form of love, but not without facing, accepting and bearing horrendous pain.
There are some interesting ideas, but you speak about the destination, not the way.
Would you really have published this essay if your son – like so many healthy young people – had died from this illness?
Lynn Haas says
Awesome. Thank-you for writing and sharing.
James Thompson says
Thanks for the essay. A local elected official shared it with me. They (I) share both your optimism at what we may build from this unfortunate opportunity, and your appreciation for just how much of what we are doing lives in the realm of the unknown and the vanguard. Reading about the world I think you might want us to build, I am reminded of the Rodenberry Universe of Star Trek, an idealistic future in which war, money, work, and racism are either obsolete or deeply subdued inside the future utopia of the Federation of Planets. Every Star Trek episode and franchise up until the very recent “battle movies” and the latest TV series were built around promoting this collective but gently nudging universe. Anticolonial critiques of the Federation’s busybody and interventionist policies do surface in various stories but in general they are resolved amicably. Rodenberry wasn’t naive but he and generations of Star Trek writers put a lot of faith and storytelling power into showing alternatives to the hustle and bustle dog-eat-dog world we live in. It was science-based but not arrogant about the singular benevolence of technology. If anything Star Trek challenges its own technophilia at every point, even pulling back its consequence-free space-time folding with a story arc about how faster than light travel distorts the fabric of the universe (they slowed the ships down after that). You hint at but don’t necessarily dig too deep into the role of storytelling here (it’s not your main focus). I would argue that any world we build is going to rely more intensely on the stories we tell about how we got here than ever before. We are at the limits of what science and technology, ideologies and political parties can do for humanity. We’re going to need good stories to get us to the next level, and they don’t need to be populated with facts and charts to get us to our next “truth.”
BDBinc says
Cecilia the way is turning inside .Right now is the time to turn within and know thyself.
The awareness is who you are.
The future is mind made the Now is the only thing that is important as that is what is .
Far more important than thinking about a future is what seed are you are cultivating in your garden now is it fear doubt or is it love, understanding and compassion. The Govts and the media are trying to grow fear but if we do not let it take roots in us it will not grow.
We are not separate from the world and the manifestations, our minds had already socially distanced and created ” others” where there are none.
Peace and love.
winn says
Brilliant! gracias!!!
Would love to have it in spanish… i live in Peru and to share here would be amazing!!
I unfortunately am not one to help with this… wish i could!
peace and love!
Dixie Ewing says
(I’m not sure if this is allowed in the comments, obviously please delete if not.)
I would like to echo the amazing acknowledgements previously giving in these comments!
I’ve loved your work for many years, Charles & the timing for this essay is obviously impeccable!
My friend, Eva & I are hosting a Zoom meeting to collaborate with anyone who would like discuss this inspiring essay by Charles.
The meeting is limited to 100 participants.
Dixie Ewing is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Charles Eisenstein – Coronation
Time: Apr 5, 2020 06:00 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/9012769808?pwd=WnQ5T2dxSk0wTEM5dG5mbFJVYk5Mdz09
Meeting ID: 901 276 9808
Password: 733671
Ransom says
Thank you so much for these beautiful words and your thoughtfulness, I love you!
Blessings and peace,
Ransom
Alexis says
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you and your work! This resonates with me deeply and I believe we are going to live in the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible!!
Cedrus Monte says
For the past 18 months I had been writing about my mother’s death. It was a labor of love, and heartbreaking suffering. But something within me “demanded” it be done. No sooner than I had finished, lockdown came into being. I could not hold the book-signing event that had been planned. My heart was broken yet again, more than I could have imagined. Another death. Another cruel quickening of loss. Because there is such controversy and natural distress around death, and because it is—at least for me—one of the central themes of your paper here, I wanted to share with you some of what I have written about my experience of death. I also feel some sense of redemption in being able to share what I was not able to share with others in a more open, public way. Perhaps sharing it here will contribute in some small way. (These are excerpts, not continuous text.) I have left out the more personal dimensions of the dying process itself, leaning into the slightly more “philosophical” aspects. This does not mean, however, that the personal stories are not in my writing this book, A MEMOIR OF MEMORIES: Remembering the Death of my Mother.
Thank you for the gift of your paper, and for the gift of being able to share some of mine. It’s hard to express adequately how grateful I am for both.
____________________________
“The Ancient Greeks knew the experience of death through the god they called Thanatos. There are few stories about Thanatos. According to many of the Ancient Greeks, Thanatos, had no altars dedicated to him: There was nothing that could be offered in sacrifice that would appease him. That is, we all die. There’s no getting out of it. There is nothing—no offering, no prayer—that can appease what we experience as his difficult purpose, his reason for being. There is nothing that can alter his own divine destiny. There are no offerings needed or accepted because he is already given his due by the simple fact that we are born and given life: To be born, to be alive, is to die. The Ancients knew this and praised it within the eternal cycles of time. But in our present-day lives, this truth is obscured. Purposely. We try to hide from it. We fear it. Death is no longer a guest at the table, no longer a natural goal in life, full of the gift of mystery.
________
Writing about my mother’s death and her dying has often been extremely difficult, bone-wrenching—to the extent that I could only write for two to three hours at most at one time,
with days and days and weeks of not writing in between. As difficult as it has been, it has also set me free. It has given me a sense of freedom: the freedom of going through my grief in more or less conscious ways; the freedom of allowing me to lay sorrow down so that the heaviness lightened; the freedom of feeling life as ever more precious.
Just a few days after bringing this memoir to a close I had a dream: A voice—that cosmic voice of the dream world—asked me: How do you feel? I responded: Shriven. That was it. That was the dream. Upon waking, I had to look up the meaning of this word—if it was even a real word, I was thinking to myself, since I hadn’t recalled hearing it, ever. But it was. It was a real word: Shriven means “to have been administered the sacrament of reconciliation; to have been administered absolution; to be freed from guilt.” It evolved from the Latin verb, scribere, meaning to write, to proclaim.
And so there it was: In writing this memoir, by proclaiming these experiences, an absolution from that within us all which absolves. For me, in my own way of seeing, that which absolves is the experience of an unconditional love. An experience of divine love. In the writing, the sacrament of reconciliation had been administered, a reconciliation within my own soul of all my regret in relation to my mother’s dying and how I was or was not able to attend to her with impeccable care.
Writing has helped me to move toward the next phase of my life, and even at 70 to re-ignite an authentic sense of creativity, a creativity that includes what seems to me to be the more essential things, life-redeeming things: understanding more deeply the natural world and what it means to be in it, of it; doing only what is truest to my deepest intuition at the level of bodily wisdom and what I can grasp of soul. This creativity includes connecting with the world for the sake of being more human, more humane, more thoughtful—especially now, as we are on the razor’s edge of survival as a species, given the real and imposing environmental crisis, given human greed, and the often sadistic cruelty of one human being toward another. It feels to me of utmost importance that whatever we do, whatever we create, be done from the heart. However much we are able to rise from that place.
______
As I mentioned earlier, in some mystical, spiritual traditions, the universe is understood as being comprised of compassion. And this compassion is understood as the ultimate form of consciousness. Within this state of consciousness, within the state of compassion, is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things, where all of life arises in sacred relation with everything else. In other words, there is no separate arising of any one thing. We are all in this together—every human, every animal, every butterfly, tree and song- bird. And we humans, specifically, need to rise together with all of life in this state of consciousness, in this field of compassion.
Death, it seems, is one of the greatest teachers in getting us into this field.
Perhaps Laurie Anderson, musician and artist, says it best in some ways: The purpose of death is the release of love. So, too, Sogyal Rinpoche, the Tibetan lama who wrote The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying in 1992, tells us: The purpose of reflecting on death is to make a real change in the depth of your heart. The death of my mother released an outpouring of love—in me, from me, for her, toward life. And it is that which I hope to return back, in whatever way I am able, in word and in deed, however flawed it may be.
Imagine that—the understanding that the purpose of death is the release of love—eight billion times over. Which is the number of humans now living on our planet. If we were all indeed able to fully experience—not just in our thoughts, but also and essentially in our blood and bones, deep within our bodies, as a fully lived reality—that the purpose of death is the release of love, then there would be little fear about dying, then our ability to love would thrive. Our ability to love would be inevitable. Because death is inevitable.
Ultimately, love and death could be understood as inseparable. Both love and death— together—might be experienced as the spark that ignites a more fully awakened consciousness, a more fully awakened heart. The kind of love involved here is not simply an emotion. This is the kind of love that can die to always “wanting,” that can die into what we are given of life and understand whatever we are given as grace, no matter how obscure that grace might seem.
To that possible end, perhaps part of the next phase in our evolution on this planet is to embrace both death and love fully—without skepticism, without reticence, and with courage, from an undefended heart, shriven of shield and armor—so that we, so that all of life, might fully thrive.”
ari shapiro says
charles, this is my first – but not last – introduction to your writing. your ability to draw a narrative arc, connecting so many dots, over so many disparate disciplines…it is staggering. i believe this essay should be read by all of humanity (i have shared it with hundreds); for it encapsulates all that is wrong – and right – about this unimaginably unique moment in time.
may future generations look back at this piece, and determine with the benefit of hindsight, that we may the correct choices.
with gratitude, ari
Mathy te Braake says
this was a interesting and worth keeping in mind as we see what happens in the next few months.
thank you.
Mathy
Belgium
Amy Sophia Marashinsky says
Deepest appreciation for your essay. Clear, provocative, and uplifting. Holding space for humanity to recognize the ALL that we are with all the elemental, microbial, animal, vegetable, mineral, all the kingdoms. In love.
John Schinnerer says
You write:
“The answer is revealing. Simply, in the face of world hunger, addiction, autoimmunity, suicide, or ecological collapse, we as a society do not know what to do. Our go-to crisis responses, all of which are some version of control, aren’t very effective in addressing these conditions.”
This is an essential element of an answer, but not all of one.
Another essential element is that a virus, by its nature and ours, affects all classes. Including what I will call the “comfortable classes,” who do not experience any apparent or direct effects from world hunger, addiction, suicide, ecological collapse, etc.
It is not just that our culture of control and polarization “knows what to do” in response to a virus. It is also that a virus gets the attention of those who can readily and comfortably ignore all the other ills that our so-called civilization has created, at home or elsewhere. It gets their attention because they too might get sick and even die. And thus they spring into action.
Speaking of dying, thanks for raising here issues of our death-phobic culture, which is also fundamental to our behaviors. If you are not familiar with the work of Stephen Jenkinson (https://orphanwisdom.com/) I encourage you and anyone reading this to dive in.
Joe Kaiser says
Is this Ari, friend of Joe?
If so, love ya man. Glad to see you here….
Joe Kaiser says
Charles, man, this so nails the situation.
Reading it was like a cold drink to a very thirsty soul.
I sure do appreciate you.
Leobardo da Cincy says
Dear Charles, I love your intention, to which you have devoted your life, to harness the power of story, of imagination, and ultimately of consciousness, towards creating what we really want by consciously articulating it and imaginatively projecting it into the future. This is a beautiful impulse. However, for me this impulse runs the risk of becoming magical thinking if it doesn’t acknowledge and, yes, take into account the reality of the current moment with which the future is intimately connected. Disconnecting from reality, and projecting magical thinking in its place, can from a certain perspective be said to be the source of the dilemma from which we think we need to escape. It is in the countless tiny and the many huge disconnects from reality that the current crisis facing humanity has been able to progress to this point.
You are familiar with Rudolf Steiner, one of history’s most profound “clear seers”, and the fruit of the research that he conducted from the vantage point of clear seeing, which includes Waldorf education, Biodynamic agriculture, and Anthroposophical medicine. Because clear seeing and magical thinking are mutually exclusive, Steiner was able to see, free of projections of magical thinking, where our current civilization is heading. Taking into account the reality of the current cosmic evolutionary moment from which the future must flow, Steiner saw the first part of the 21st Century and commented that at this time each of us would face a decision: that either the cosmic force of fearlessness and meaningfulness would have emerged in us as individuals as the overarching quality of our hearts and the guiding purpose of our lives, or we would find ourselves faced with the destruction of civilization. Our dilemma, and our choice, is that simple. We’re on the threshold of this reality playing itself out.
If we don’t recognize clearly, without magical thinking, the choice we must make, the only choice we really have as free human beings, and the magnitude of this choice for the future of humanity, we may contribute to the problem rather than helping to bring about the solution. We must answer, for ourselves, and with our lives, the question of the human spiritual heart. Within the heart the solution waits to be recognized and embraced, and then we will be fearless, and our lives will overflow with meaning. Then, and only then, will we know ourselves to be safe and invulnerable to all the drama unfolding seemingly outside of us.
On the other hand, if we focus outside of ourselves to try to hold onto or salvage a dream rightfully fading away, all we will find is the destruction of civilization, which is destined to take place on the so-called outer plane because this civilization has run its course.
Let’s unite as sisters and brothers focusing our attention on the only choice that has meaning at this moment of spiritual evolution. In this I salute your beautiful impulse and work on behalf of humanity.
Steve says
It’s a very hopeful and transformational essay that invokes at its core the dual notion of self as an individual point of reference (the separate self) through which arises individual consciousness, uniqueness, relations and all that we know of as life. The other conception, the flip side of the separate self arises from an understanding of the dependency of the separate self on everything other, known or unknown, discoverable or not, to establish the individual self. From the view of the separate self, there is nothing that exists that is not dependent upon the existence of something else including the self that perceives the existence of the other.
I like to think of it this way – imagine a being so universally vast that nothing could be excluded from it, it is one whole being without individual parts, all of it together as one, like the universe itself for example or a universe of universes. A self without other is one without distinction, without perception or language, with noting outside of itself to experience as other. This is being without any form of self reference, it is silent, nothing and everything. It neither exists nor does not exist, it is utterly incomprehensible to the mind of the separate self (like us humans), and certainly cannot be easily expressed well or clearly with language.
And this notion takes us back to the conventional self referential self. Realizing that there is truly no separation of self and other, even in our individual existences, only interdependence, we cannot help but to see the other as extensions of the individual self. I am that, that is me – the self and other are part of the same vast being that when taken on the whole is without any reference at all. It is empty, as the Buddhists say.
The only thing that separates individual minds is the material locus of consciousness in our brains and bodies. And consciousness is weird but I guess that despite how it appears to us in experience and perception, it is more like a field we exist in rather than something we possess and are. That self is utterly impermanent and I think it ends completely with the death of the body. But the vast being of which we are part does not cease, if it did then the world would end when a life ends. So, yeah, death. Ugh. But there you have it, as much the individual self is an illusory conception, so is the death of that self. Not that I expect that to assuage anyone’s fear of death or non-existence, or that it might loosen one’s attachment to the immortality of the individual self.
So what am I going on about anyway? Well this sort of realization about the nature of our existence is what is called for to create the kind of world this writer (and so many of us) imagine to be possible. This conception is the perennial philosophy that comes up again and again is all manner of mysticism and deep religious or spiritual philosophy. And it is a pretty hard thing to get. Not as hard as some would make it seem but certainly not easy even in the best of circumstances, which we are quite far from at the moment. We could get to talking more about it, even if we are short of realization. Sadly religion is so corrupted by greed, politics and power that it intentionally places obstacles that confound, confuse and misdirect us from that goal and deliberately reinforce the conception of a separate eternal self-hood. Talking about these ideas might help if done broadly enough. But crisis, shock and stopping everything (thank you Corona) also might, with a little luck, give us enough pause to reflect on our nature, and that could allow us to see others as part of our being and for compassion, cooperation and trust to grow into a new model for our world. Who knows? I hope so.
Peter Researcher says
Charles,
Great article.
Are you aware that David Icke’s video has been blocked?
https://londonreal.tv/the-truth-behind-the-coronavirus-pandemic-covid-19-lockdown-the-economic-crash-david-icke/
Shannon Bronson says
Dear Charles,
Thank you for your complex, hopeful and disturbing insights into our experiences, real and projected. I am a yoga teacher, and have reflected that the virus is amplifying one of five mental disturbances or kleshas, called Abhinivesha or the fear of death. It is a mental disturbance that is similar to egotism, ignorance of interdependence, attraction and aversion-it is a disturbance that can be cut through with awareness of the open nature of reality and compassion. A defining practice of my study in Tibetan Buddhism has been around death awareness-practicing being conscious that at any given moment, I could die has radically changed my life forever. It is a profoundly liberating thought to contemplate often, I’ve found it frees me to live my life to the fullest in every moment. I also recognize the death denial in our culture, and our severance from rituals that create identity, belonging and orientation to individuals and communities. I have radically transformed my own life through practices like meditation, yoga, spiritual study, adopting a food as medicine mentality, engaging with creativity and valuing human touch. I am a reiki healer, and I heal my afflictions and much of my anxiety by simply placing my hands on myself and breathing as I lie in bed at night.
I created the Share Your Heart Project as a mind-body mandala for human connection. The project integrates all of these modalities into a ritual for use and is an inquiry into virtue and interdependence. Users meditate, color, read and create Cosmic Rainbow Hearts of gratitude for the teachers in their life. They empower the hearts with ritual, and share their stories when complete. Then they send, burn, or bury them. When I was launching my website last February, I felt like a lunatic, because I was sharing a vision for transforming 7.4billion people, one person at a time. Now the virus makes me feel like the scale of the project is necessary. It introduces compassion practices, movement, and reflection as tools to empower and direct talent and energy. It seeks to bring the view of the world as sacred and precious. The goal of the project is to shape minds into using their talents and resources to take compassionate action in the world. I believe that if you have a spiritual practice that occurs within your body, you are bound to wake up to bodhicitta, or the wish to help all living beings. I have felt it personally, and I know we all have it inside of us. If you ever have time or energy to look at it and share your thoughts I would be humbled and honored, because it is my life’s purpose to help support a societal evolution towards harmony. I am slowly but surely piecing the project together, and hope that it can bolster the co-creation of world in harmony, full of individuals who are whole and supported.
Thank you for your intelligence, heart and courage to speak so soberly and with such warning and hope as you have here.
http://www.shareyourheartproject.com
Bene says
Do we mean „physical distancing“ when we say „social distancing“? 🤔
Catherine says
I found this irritating. At heart is a belief that governments want totalitarian control and that the government is somehow separate from the people. Why? Totalitarian control is a nightmare to organise and has never worked in the longterm, it destroys itself. Meanwhile Western democratic politics can be penetrated by anyone even if the system favours the main parties. If you want things to improve then the best way is to stop voting for lower taxes and allow programmes that help the less well off to be properly funded. The only conspiracy is the logical endpoint of a capitalism that diverts increasing amounts of money into the hands of a largely unaccountable few and makes people focus on their own self-interests rather than the good of society.
Helena says
Catherine, it seems that individuals can manipulate governments and whole societies toward totalitarianism rather than governments wanting totalitarianism!
salah bela says
hello
thanks for this amazing web site keep going
jane says
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this article.
Your ability to express nuance and a variety of angles was so absolutely refreshing, if not necessary, to read at this time. Dogma seems to prevail and lines are being drawn, boarders being defined, sides being taken – so to read something that reminds me of how wide a lens we must look through to try to understand (or not understand) what is happening, feels like one of the healthiest bits of media I’ve consumed in ages.
By focusing so poignantly on the macro picture you’ve reminded me that this is far from a micro problem – not a problem of the fish but of the tank.
Thank you thank you thank you!
Emma says
Thank you so much, Charles, for this insightful article that I will be sharing with many…
sat-nam
Dina Barzilai says
Thanks for articulating what I actually just tried to say in a response to someone commenting on a particular non-mainstream article I’d posted on Facebook. I am going to post a link to this essay there as well…it’s funny, I have never even heard of you and stumbled on this page by accident, but if my commenter reads your essay, she will probably think I was parroting what you said. Yes, this can be looked at at as a crisis, or an opportunity. Our dominant paradigm is more problematic than a single virus.
Carllyn says
Thank you – I have been a follower for years! This is a very important message with many concepts to spark critical thinking now! Please can you provide a transcript in Spanish? Thank you!!
Marvin Poston, Psy.D. says
Charles, thank you for articulating so many important ideas and dimensions of this coronavirus drama unfolding in so many suspicious and ominous ways. Your meta-perspective beyond the immediate situation was especially valuable. I posted “highlights” on a research forum as well as Facebook, which was challenging since I concluded nearly every other sentence essential for rightly representing the breadth of your article. You are obviously well-read, intelligent and insightful, but if you’re like so many who fall into that category, you may not be fully aware of the pervasive destructive energy expended by genetic psychopaths among us who are the “wolves in sheep’s clothing” feigning vacuous concern while plotting brazen schemes against us. I would highly recommend you read the seminal masterpiece, “Political Ponerology–A Science On Evil Adjusted For Political Purposes” by Andrew Lobaczewski, a native of post-WW2 Poland while in the iron grip of psychopathic tyrants, whom he studied intensely as a repressed citizen/psychologist as the basis of this book. His obstructed efforts to smuggle his manuscript out of Poland served only to confirm the truth of his findings. In fact his third attempt was blocked by none other than Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as the National Security Adviser during Jimmy Carter’s presidency and was a respected voice on U.S. foreign policy. The website for the book is ponerology.com. A thorough overview can be found here: https://cassiopaea.org/2012/02/08/political-ponerology-a-science-on-the-nature-of-evil-adjusted-for-political-purposes/ And a brief review can be found here: https://www.sott.net/article/152452-Political-Ponerology-A-Science-of-Evil-Applied-for-Political-Purposes . Keep up the good work!
Karl marx says
I very much doubt Rupert Murdoch is going to stop printing his papers, people like Warren Buffet will discontinue their class war against the poor and the bizarre, sadomasochistic class of inbred freaks we laughable call leaders in the UK conservative party will grow some consciousness about the people their policies have and are currently murdering. The end of the second world war was the kind of moment this chap spoke of, unlike the end of the first world war, where returning veterans were thrown into destitution, people demanded the continuation of health care and central planning that had happened as a result of the total war economy. I don’t see people being this organised as a result of Corona. “in the face of world hunger, addiction, autoimmunity, suicide, or ecological collapse, we as a society do not know what to do” couldn’t disagree more. We know e x a c t l y what to do and have done for decades, we’ve got the solutions to climate change poverty, and war, just no one wants to hear them. We are in a fight to the death between the future and the past with a class of people who are making vast sums of money from these global crisis. Even now, the loans designed to help business survive this period are a profit making tool for senior members of the Tory party. The media have reported on it, but nothing will change, most of the people accept capitalism and this crisis, like all others, will only result in the rich getting richer, and the same class of people running the show, and the human race into the ground.
Julia Woodman says
There was a virus eating a hole in the world
but the people kept putting new bricks back in.
There were so many creative angles, perspectives, and collaborations,
that it became more beautiful than it was before.
The people were full of new surprises,
every day they kept learning
and expanding their hearts,
and the music that we thought had momentarily stopped
came back with new force
to fill our spirits and make us strong.
We can turn horror stories into fairy tales if we focus on love.
We can make the world full of all the dreams we want it to hold.
We can be divine if we put our minds to it.
We can heal the deepest traumas and divides from right inside,
and we can breathe again because we know we have to.
We know deep down we can rise
to turn the tides like never before.
The greatest challenge obviously means
That the most evolutionary victory is coming.
Look, here we are now, together, ready to move forward.
Daniel Richards says
I applaud your article in all but one critical aspect of death not mentioned, which is so very common especially in our culture today. When someone dies, they don’t necessarily go ‘Home’: bright light, angels, etc. That depends on many factors not recognized by our culture. The death of one in deep trauma at the time of death or prior to death can an usually does lead to Hell. There are many spiritual writings on this potential outcome. Therefore the real effort to respond to this and any epidemic disease needs to address this fact at the death bed. That is the potential value of a shaman or highly evolved practitioner to be available and present for this transition. And those practitioners are rare and cannot possibly be present at more than a few hundred global death beds at best. Communities or groups of two or more gathered to pray sincerely for those dying from any traumatic condition is most needed to build a bridge to Home for them as they die.
It takes great discernment and courage for our medical staff to act outside of the training and systems that they operate in. Not something we can anticipate in our current culture and world. It will be a step by step breakdown of what is not life affirming in our whole world of humans as we lift up those most affected by the fears and distortions of their yearning for a life worth living. For those who have had the advantages given to them of more awareness, such as you Charles, more is required of them. Please consider adding that great need for a community of compassion for both the living and the dying in this time, Through sincere prayer we can make changes beyond our personal to the community, to the greater need.
Harn Soper says
Weeds and COVID-19 are all the same
In farming, weeds are the virus metaphorically speaking. Particularly in conventional chemical-based farming which occupies 98% of all US agriculture. As farmers have learned, weeds will adapt forcing farmers to use stronger and harsher chemicals that in turn weaken our soil even more. The weaker the soil the more paths weeds have to overtake the field and diminish crops.
In a human metaphor, mankind is the crop and COVID-19 is the weed. In our diminishing relationship with our food and how we abuse soil to get fed, billions of us have dramatically tilted nature out of balance. COVID-19, like a weed, has taken advantage of our weakness and will, as weeds do on the farm, diminish our numbers too.
We diminish ourselves with all the chemicals in our food that cause our bodies to fall out of balance and exposed to diseases like COVID-19. We also diminish ourselves with wars as we compete with each other for diminishing food and water supplies.
Without our help, nature has many more tools than just COVID-19 to achieve a rebalanced environment. Floods, hurricanes, pandemics, droughts, are just a few. However, if we can discipline ourselves to take the hard steps with social distancing to thwart COVID-19, then perhaps we have the fortitude to change our lifestyles, our food systems and reverse our abuse of the environment. Weeds and COVID-19 are cut from the same cloth.
We have a choice but remember, nature doesn’t care and nature always bats last.
Diarmuid O'Murchu (www.diarmuidomurchu.com) says
Hi Charles. Thanks for your profound redflection on what is facing us right now. Your naming of reality is not merely insightful, but propetically subversive. Love & Blessings to you!
Mark Chiang says
Not street cred
But a safe bet
A substitute
For the sacred
Leah says
When you described the template of initiation, what I realized, is that it’s a process of integrating the sense of self and the innate understanding of oneness with everything. To me, they both serve a purpose. A sense of self is only harmful if there’s a belief that one is separate from the whole. A sense of self with an understanding of being part of the whole is supportive and in every way nourishing to all. Integration dissolves fear surrounding separation and gives way to compassion and love. Thank you for sparking this opening of understanding for me that I trust will continue, not only for my healing but the healing of us all.
Steven W. Barger says
The paper you link to in discussing potentially high rates of false-positive COVID-19 test results (Zhuang et al., 2020, Zhonghua Liu Xing Bing Xue Za Zhi. 2020 Mar 5;41(4):485-488, PMID: 32133832) has been withdrawn.
Davina Menduno says
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this. My first feeling with the Covid 19 outbreak was one that you described so aptly; a small thrill when finally I came upon the corner where the world changed, like I had been anticipating my whole life. Surely this world can’t go on like this! And I was filled with inspiration to help support that change through a creative project. But then, while researching, I got bogged down by fear of the Totalitarian response, and I found myself arguing to open peoples eyes to the “powers that be.” But in doing that I constricted, my feeling of inspiration shriveled, I was left full of anxiety. Thank you for speaking my language and acting as a voice of calm reason in such an unsure time. While still seeing and naming the immense opportunity Covid 19 has presented. The fork in the road. We do not want to go back to the world as it was, business as usual. I look forward to reading everything you write. Thank you.
Eric Tucker says
I appreciate many of the sentiments expressed and don’t mean to nitpick but I find the choice of wording “at the same time as the Nazis succumbed to the war machine” curious and a bit disturbing. Wasn’t it the Nazis that created a war machine, and also a parallel death machine through the camps? I for one am grateful that the Nazis “succumbed.” Of course the allies had to wage war to defeat the Nazis and there were excesses in the prosecution of that defensive war, but regardless to even hint or give any credence to the notion that “the war machine” to defeat fascism was not in some way needed and justified is deeply problematic to me. There is no “the war machine.” The mechanisms of war were used by a profoundly evil regime, and the mechanisms and technologies of war were thankfully mobilized to defeat fascism. In the cases of both Allies and the Nazi lead Axis, the mechanism and technologies of war had to be organized and I guess the word “machine” could be applied, but the use of the phrase “the war machine” puts a pejorative spin on any organized military effort that could be interpreted as moral equivalency of the Allied and Axis efforts. It appears you write somewhat extemporaneously and perhaps would be good to rethink and revise this sentence? Also, in what appears to be a “full disclosure” approach of sorts you have links to several questionable articles and sources. You then deflect ownership of these links but nevertheless give them credence by posting them. A casual reader might be easily mislead. I don’t want to give these sites any more traffic by even siting them. Yes of course we have to be skeptical of mainstream viewpoints in this challenging and evolving crisis but believe with a little research and a little judgement you could have easily weeded out some of the links. To be honest, you are clearly a thoughtful individual who writes well and often eloquently, but I find this piece way to long and way to meandering. I guess for some that is part of its charm but if you want to get beyond a limited audience you need to edit down. This is like a mind dump of every thought in your head about this crisis. Are really all these thoughts of equal value? You profess the need for humility but I find this piece, for all its value, a bit self-indulgent and undisciplined. Everyone needs editing and 90% can be self-editing. Take your time to edit down and you’ll be respecting your readers time, and I believe will find yourself with more readers. Perhaps more important you’ll have an opportunity to think a second time about wording choice and the links you choose to include (and like it or not by that choice promote the spurious content in those links). I believe you can do better. I want you to do better. I hope these points will be constructive and useful.
ahlam st says
Thanks again for the blog post.Really looking forward to read more. Much obliged
pat says
My, my got a little too much time on your hands ? Well, bless your your heart .
Paul Drielsma says
The best even handed and comprehensive thing I have read about this whole Covid 19 ‘event’. Thanks so much.
Ferenc Báró says
Always, I “love” smart scientists who are smarter than reality,
On that passenger ship, not the chronically ill, the immune system was weakened, elderly people were traveling! And not the poor who don’t even have enough money for food.
The world isn’t just made up of those who can pay for the cruise!
Wake Up! This virus must be taken seriously!
Jarrett Gilgore says
Wow, thank you so much, Charles. Your dedication to critical thinking and critical feeling is inspiring, and it resonates deeeeeeeeply.
I am so grateful to have found your work on this small corner of the internet.
Many thanks and love from Baltimore.
-Jarrett
Alex says
Thank you for this text Charles, it is deep and it is beautiful.
Colin Treiber says
This is quite a mood piece, expertly written to lift spirits. For that it is perhaps quite appropriate. Yet my wonder is; when will content arrive to reinforce all the popular progressive imageries of our time, such as this one? Is it any surprise why people run back to the status quo? There is nothing real to these flourishing moods of optimism presented by the cultural influencers. Is there anything inside your sentiment, anything substantial enough to be deemed a real idea, capable of actually bestowing a new societal or cultural impulse, as you have proven is so necessary? I don’t think mere judgments of what is and what is not compassion will do.
Mary Jarrett says
My daughter sent this for me to read, because yesterday I defied the social distancing rules and went and visited her and my beautiful grandchildren.
Last weekend, was the tip of the iceberg for me, (Easter) with being told we would be fined if we went out unnecessary. I have been yearning to see my grandchildren and children, so yesterday I DID.
If it should mean a premature death, which I am confidant it wont, IT WAS WORTH IT.
PS GREAT READ !!!!
john capper says
Thanks for the article. Came upon your site by accident via Google…..the thing is, I think somebody else mentioned this, but you always seem to be sitting on the fence. Maybe things aren’t always black or white, maybe it is my problem. Also, couldn’t you condense it all into just some good points, or do you get paid by the word, ? (actually, just realised it’s totally your own site so that’s not an issue, sorry!)…I kept skimming through trying to see when you get to the point, and you never really do. You might say that’s part of the problem, my skimming….it’s almost like you’re going through everything in your head, giving both sides, and that you could just have this conversation with yourself (and save us the time in having to read it!)…reading what I’ve just written back to myself and it sounds a bit offensive, really sorry, no offense meant at all! I’ve read what Eric Tucker commented earlier, he put it a lot better than me actually, damn.
Shannon Fletcher says
OMG. So found this to be a breath of fresh air. Gripping and open, spacious. I love the idea of looking down different paths. We can choose. I have been seeing glimmers of positive change that can happen. I hope we choose those paths. Maybe I am a hopeful romantic. But I don’t care. This is a Great Pause and we can choose to take it as a gift and opportunity for much needed change in the way of love, connection, community etc. Thank you so much for putting words to all this, Charles. It is on my FB page and being passed to my email list serv.
Ken MacLean says
This article should be required reading for all humanity. A comprehensive overview of the human condition exacerbated by Covid-19.
It’s our choice to embrace higher consciousness, or succumb to the dystopian nightmare of separation and a worldwide surveillance state.
Francisco Leon says
Beautiful essay! Thanks Charles for your view on this topic, I hope this is the threshold of a new more harmonious era. 🙂
Melanie Gold says
“Now the authorities tell us that some social distancing may need to continue indefinitely, at least until there is an effective vaccine. I would like to put that argument in a larger context, especially as we look to the long term. Lest we institutionalize distancing and reengineer society around it, let us be aware of what choice we are making and why.” There is a growing movement to reclaim and rename “social distancing” by calling it what it is, PHYSICAL DISTANCING. All while those of us who see the value of connection practice increased “social proximity”. Perhaps you will join us Charles because words make our world, and you surely are aware of that.
William Thomson says
Thank goodness the obvious has been acknowledged by Charles E. regarding the distinction between people dying with C19 rather than from it, and from that, an understanding about the myriad conditions and circumstances for infection and/or death, causing some very young to die and some very old to survive.
The thing that puzzles me about statistics is that there is almost never a comparison made to what is generally the case. ie .. this person lives on $1 a day in a developing country but no reference given as to what amount is needed to have at least physical needs met.
So .. to get things in perspective … how many people die worldwide from all causes every minute of every day and how many are born every minute ?
Certainly more of the the latter and less of the the former. Yes we are all part of (‘mother’) nature, viruses and germs included no matter how we think or believe we are separate.
I love the comment “a saved life is a postponed death”
I also appreciate, as a follower of Buddhist teachings, the reference to a death fearing culture.
Coming ‘home’ though sounds a little too permanent for my liking.
Returning to to ‘where you were before you were born’ sits better.
I appreciate that no doctrinal truth is insinuated in this essay .. always the Yin and Yang ..
Thank you for your positive visions
Amanda Hugonkis says
this article is at least 15% rubbish the rest i dont know because i couldnt go on reading it
Achim Jecht says
Please let me know where to find the spanish translation!
Sva Li Levy says
Many thanks for publishing this piece !
It became so rare to come across an intelligent stuff, an insight based observation that is not rushing to feed the herd with “the needs of the hour”! A voice that succeed to bring together : a visionary examination of our current situation (not just a data base of “facts” & “numbers”), free thinking within a critical eye, some sanity, some peaceful clarity of mind, the Story-telling and the Love – that are so basic in order to See through and beyond the Obvious…. !!
Mark Perlsweig says
Charles, unfortunately, your article is a bit inchoate and rambles between unrelated subjects. I suppose it is because you are a bit young. I’ll toss you an idea that you haven’t heard before. If you like it email me back, if you don’t, please ignore it. One individual with a great grasp on human nature was JRR Tolkien who brought into literature the concept of the ring of power. He actually was close to overtly stating and understanding a little discussed aspect of human nature. When a large group of humans live together, the need for a cooperative social framework arises from the essential nature of the group as a quality of that group. Small groups of humans do not possess such a quality of their grouping. The nature of the cooperative framework could easily be called governance. The style of governance be it socialist, communist, democratic, monarchical, etc is irrelevant. Tolkien correctly pointed out that a hierarchical structure or ring of power is created and the very human nature of those who wear the ring of power is to potentially be corrupted. You are perhaps a bit distracted by the topics of the day which exist inside The Matrix of false dichotomous choice. However I applaud your attempts to put your head through the wall of The Matrix itself even though as yet you have not burst through. The parables and teachings of the Judaic tradition (which is yours to inherit) have already addressed much of the substance which you are hoping to raise. The story of the four rabbis who visited Gan Eden and the entire Exodus story are quite deeply profound and speak in numerous ways to the apparent reality in which we find ourselves. And yet punk rock lives on. My personal response to the crisis can be found at the web address below.
Catherine says
Dear Mark Perlsweig,
Where can I find your written response to the crisis? There is no web address.
thank you,
Catherine Preus
Zoltan Kis says
I agree about the point on our obsession with security, which links strongly with fear, which links with controllability or the assumption of control.
IMHO that is also the reason we have so many conspiracy theories: people would like to think there is at least somebody who is in control, even if a villain (of course a villain).
If someone develops a protocol to react to an eventual future threat, and later that event happens, nowadays the first thing that comes to peoples’ mind is that the person (or institution) in question “designed” the whole thing and will be able to come up with dozens of logical reasons why. Of course it’s evil as well :).
We have a problem, let’s find the people who can be linked with it. Name them the villains. We get rid of the villains, problem solved. Right?
Of course we should focus on the problem, not on creating an personified enemy picture attached with the problem.
Of course we should not need an enemy for being able to unite for solving a problem, but for some reason it’s easier for us to join forces against people rather than against problems…
Well, everyone judges others by his/her own standard… a reflection of the fearful, egoistic self that is fighting with chaos but wants to avoid sacrifice, suffering and responsibility.
It’s easier to blame someone.
Jennifer Mars says
Hi Charles, brevity is the soul of wit. Have you considered hiring an editor? Your words would look better with a trim.
Alice says
Dear Charles, I’ve been thinking similarly and am grateful for my friend for sending me here. Thank you for expressing in such clear, summarized, eloquent words.
Travis says
You wrote about banning currency. You are aware that it was prophesied over 1900 years ago that in the future there will be a world government that will not allow anyone to buy or sell unless they have a mark indicating their allegiance to that government? (Revelation 13:17)
When was this predicted to happen? When the Gospel of the kingdom of Jesus Christ has been preached to the whole world (Matthew 24:14); When people become “lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without affection, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:2-5)
We are very close to that time. How did the writers of the Bible know that this would happen? It is because they were shown these things by the eternal, omnipotent God.
You may think that it is “cool” to be in with the New World Order crowd, who desire to build a new tower of Babel. But do not be deceived! What will happen to those who do give allegiance to the coming world government? “And they will be made to drink of the wine of the wrath of God which has been poured, undiluted, into the cup of His anger and they will be tormented in fire and sulfur before the holy angels and before the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment will go up forever and ever and they will not have rest day and night . . . ” (Revelation 14:10,11)
Flee these things! Our God, become Man, has died for our sins and has risen again in victory over death. We will have forgiveness of our sins, reconciliation with our Maker, and eternal joy, if we will repent and call upon Jesus in faith as our Savior and true Lord. He who has ears, let him hear!
Mansal Denton says
This is such a masterful piece, Charles. Many thanks. I spoke with Dr. Craig Koniver and he confirmed my suspicion, which is that this is the best article of the topic!
Ben says
This f***ing sick! Honestly the smartest most engaging bit of writing I’ve read about the virus yet. I’m always thought of myself as pretty smart but this is next level
Mercedes says
Gracias Charles, realmente esta es un extraordinario regalo para la mente y el corazón. Gracias nuevamente por tu entrega y servicio, tanta claridad, es luz en nuestro camino.
Marcel Kincaid says
For someone who wishes that more people would embrace not knowing, and urges being humble in one’s beliefs, you sure do make a lot of forceful confident claims. So much of what you write seems to flow from *ideology*, rather than the scientific Bayesian approach of inferring the best explanation of all the available evidence (this inference is constantly shifting in the light of new evidence and new insights into what the evidence implies). For instance, as an old guy with a lot of old friends and relatives, most of whom are very active members of society but some of whom have chosen to live in senior and assisted living, and as a member of several organizations which hold their meetings at senior living centers because many of their members are elderly and they get the meeting rooms for free, I find that the evidence does not support the notion that the elderly are being “warehoused” as a result of a death-denying youth culture (which is not to say that there is no death denying or youth culture). And the evidence does not support the notion that there’s a trade-off between saving (prolonging) lives and saving the economy–economists are nearly universal in the view that lifting lockdowns too soon results in more severe economic consequences. I could go on and on–addressing all your forceful assertions and cherry picking–but just because you did doesn’t mean that I must.
Dennise Waldron says
Thank you so much for this article it makes the world more sensible with opportunities for all to overcome fear and domination
Mark says
For all the sophistication and eloquence of this brilliantly thoughtful essay, the erudite analysis, the original and independent thinking, the excellent questions it asks and poses, this essay is fatally flawed in its naivete. First of which is that we have a choice in this at all. Once mandatory vaccines are implemented, for example, any conscientious objector will have no recourse. There will be no vote on this subject of violating anther’s personal property and body, it will be enforced in the same way the lock-downs have been enforced: without consent. Secondly, there is no real discussion of the economic destruction that is taking place and what that will mean for huge populations of the planet for years to come. This omission is striking. Couple that with the free money, all fiat currency, the fact that the stock market is rising while the world is not working at anywhere near normal capacity, and not asking what this financialization of the economy and the market means, and one can see a perfect storm for radical change, albeit one that the powers-that-be will initiate, again with no consent. Where is the historical record and analysis of what is presented as conspiracy theory. The author says he doesn’t know if these theories are true or not, that for all he knows, it is possible.
This is like saying that the United States Federal Reserve may be a nefarious institution of private international, foreign bankers who own and dictate the United States monetary system without any oversight whatsoever, no audits, out of reach of congressional or any other committee oversight, that enriches the elite bankers while decimating the rest of the 99%, most especially the economic building middle-class – but, I don’t know. Well, how about having an opinion? Why not due the investigative work and find out? To say this, or state the conspiracy theories as mentioned above, without an opinion, does the author’s own thoroughly thought out essay a disservice. Because this aspect he writes about is not thought out. It is tossed out there without a bit of light to shine on its veracity or fraud.
There is more to critique, but I would rather suggest that anyone who wants to learn about the history of these issues to look at the following: Carroll Quigley’s “Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in our Time”, John Taylor Gatto’s “The Underground History of America Education: A School Teacher’s Intimate Investigation into the Problems of Modern Schooling,”, John F. Kennedy’s speech regarding secret societies, which I will link to here because even if you type the exact title into YouTube you might miss it – YouTube has become Big Brother’s effective censorship tool: JFK on Secret Societies | “The President and the Press” Speech (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-AZV3qnwkA), David Rockefeller’s “Memoirs”, among others that can be further suggested if asked for. Reading these books, and others, will illuminate the motives and history of some of the most effective movers and shakers of society. Pieced together with the Mr. Eisenstein’s great contribution above, one will be armed with an opinion backed in historical fact and not left without an opinion to such important matters.
Since we sheepishly crawled into our self- imposed house arrest, we have time on our hands to begin to take a larger look, gain an expanded perception, and think through our consent to be ruled and controlled. A true sovereign does not follow orders as we have done. I would love nothing more than to build the society of love the author envisions. But I am not naive to the greater forces that will and have dominated, that will and have ordered us into our homes at the barrel of their almighty gun. Sensationalism? Just step outside these draconian orders, live your sovereignty in liberty, and land in jail at the barrel of a gun. Resist that arrest and be shot.
Shane Kenyon says
Wow, TL;DR but very thoughtful. I do completely disagree with your premise that we don’t take action on other social issues because we don’t know what to do, whereas we do know what to do about the virus. You yourself don’t even believe this, as prior to that statement you spend 2-3 paragraphs detailing the reality of the misinformation and lack of real data which would be absolutely necessary to “know what to do” and take rational action in response.
Whereas with obesity, child welfare and many of the other items you mentioned, in fact we have many years of scientific research that points us definitively towards rational solutions. Yes “we” still don’t act. Why? Because “we” have no power. Acting on obesity means curtailing massive capitalist enterprises, which requires thinking in a non-capitalist way at a societal level and we are not even close to that, although COVID will allow many of us to start thinking that another (non-capitalist) world is possible while we whittle their time away unemployed.
And the response to COVID is not a collective act. It is an imposed regime executed by those in authority, of which I include the corporate media complex. Granted, there is a fractured elite, just like the rest of society, and not everyone is on board. A large fraction of the elite has not bought into the COVID response and its authoritarian trappings. However, the most powerful elites, the billionaires, seem to be in near consensus. Especially the technocratic elites. It is not a huge stretch of the imagination to suggest that the FAANG power elite is taking COVID as a golden opportunity to wrest control decisively from the less globalist elites that form the financial base of Trump and his allies. And it is quite clear they intend to make this power grab permanent.
How interesting it is that while the economy is tanking and 20M+ people are unemployed, and millionaire business owners across the nation are going bankrupt, that under these conditions the FAANG are taking the stock market to new highs? How interesting it is that what seems to be an economic disaster actually looks very much like an economic model that is perfectly suited to the business models of the FAANG. Howe interesting that the FAANG almost exclusively donate to Democrats and the Blue State Governors have led the charge to implement the most authoritarian control measures.
Is it a conspiracy? I would argue not at all. Conspiracies have to be secret, and there is nothing secret about this. In fact, it would be absolutely stupid for anyone to argue that the FAANG or any other enterprise would not take advantage of a situation to further their own ends. It would be stupid to imagine that entities with tens (hundreds?) of billions of dollars at their disposal would NOT act decisively in times of crisis.
The real question it seems to me, is under these conditions, how can “We the People” act as you have suggested, and independently of a technocratic elite, implement truly human centric social change while preserving the human bonds, liberties and democratic governance that we all want and deserve?
Lisa says
Very thoughtful and full of true questioning of what we “know.” Thank you. I do have a question though . . . Would you view this virus and the response differently if it were children and young people who were most at risk?
Chris says
I agree with the objections of both Shane and Mark, and others, I too find this essay to be flawed and questionable in some of its assertions, despite its strong points.
In addition to their criticisms, with which I Concur, I also feel that the essay confuses and conflates two separate issues, the physical reality of Covid (a deadly plague threatening the entire planet) with the psychological and spiritual significance of Covid. People may have all sorts of deep and legitimate spiritual and emotional reasons for wanting the system to grind to a halt, and The Coronavirs may be the perfect pretext to enforce a halt to a system that felt like it was spiraling out of control — but that doesn’t prove there really is a deadly plague killing millions. Kary Mullis, the very inventor of the PCR test, before he died last year strenuously objected to its diagnostic use for finding “new” viruses. David Crowe has exhaustively detailed the misuse of the test and why the figures of mortality rates are unreliable. Dozens of virologists have objected to the lockdowns and scaremongering in the media. German New Medicine, invented by Ryke Geerd Hamer, offers a highly empirical scientific theory that calls into question all our bedrock assumptions about infectious disease and pandemics in general.
Yet bizarrely, Eisenstein thinks it’s all one big ineffable mystery and we’ll never really know the truth. But a completely objective God’s eye viewpoint of any event or issue is impossible, that doesn’t mean we can’t cone to any clear conclusions about what’s going on. Clearly, if German New Medicine is a correct paradigm, and I strongly believe it is, then the mainstream views of the likes of Anthony Fauci will necessarily have to be wrong. But we’ve got to argue and debate these ideas, we have to have an airing of various viewpoints, not the rigid censoring of views going on now, and subjection to de facto global propaganda from the WHO and the Gates Foundation.
Eisenstein seems content to accept the “ineffable mystery of things,” in a way I find misleading and unsatisfactory. It’s great if others found this essay inspiring, but I found it frustrating. Very valid points about the psychological and spiritual importance of this apparent crisis were being jumbled together with very confused and dubious assumptions about the physical, tangible existence of a new plague. Eisenstein starts by mentioning how for decades he’s had this feeling of impending crisis, of how humanity is at a crossroads. But he overlooks the obvious: if hundreds of millions or even billions -including the most powerful among us – also have had such a feeling of doom, that the system is crazy system (even if only subliminally or half-consciously) then it would follow that it wouldn’t take a “real” crisis, a “real” pandemic, a “real” killer virus, to bring the system to a halt. All it would take is enough people around the world to have this feeling of existential dread in their souls (including billionaires like Bill Gates) and they will MAKE the “pandemic” real. A pure figment of their imagination can grind things to a halt if enough people wish it so. The Coronavirus doesn’t have to be a real pandemic at all – and if David Crowe or Hamer are right, it isn’t.
Chris says
An example of what I dislike about this essay is this passage:
“Covid-19 is showing us that when humanity is united in common cause, phenomenally rapid change is possible. None of the world’s problems are technically difficult to solve; they originate in human disagreement. In coherency, humanity’s creative powers are boundless. A few months ago, a proposal to halt commercial air travel would have seemed preposterous. Likewise for the radical changes we are making in our social behavior, economy, and the role of government in our lives. Covid demonstrates the power of our collective will when we agree on what is important. What else might we achieve, in coherency? What do we want to achieve, and what world shall we create? That is always the next question when anyone awakens to their power.”
This strikes me as severely distorted. It would be more accurate to describe what happened as governments and NGOs united in a common cause to rigidly control and circumscribe the population, which is the only strategy they know how to employ in times of crisis. Trying to put a heartwarming spin on this – or on the vast majority’s servility and lockstep obedience to the power of the state when they’re in the grip of extreme fear and panic – is not persuasive to me. Trying to ascribe what happened to “the power of the collective will” is just not convincing. It’s not the power of the collective will, but the power of politicians, the MSM, the WHO and other non-elected organizations, and billionaire elites like Bill Gates to impose their particular vision and mandate as the only correct one during a time of emergency and crisis. I don’t believe in the Illuminati or the lizard people secretly pulling the strings, but clearly the media, the state, and the billionaire class have way too much power. Most people simply believe whatever their elites tell them to think.
Chris says
“None of the world’s problems are technically difficult to solve; they originate in human disagreement. In coherency, humanity’s creative powers are boundless.”
This statement encapsulates what I find most frustrating about Eisenstein’s writing. This strikes me as close to the opposite of the truth. Solutions are found, have always been found, in healthy, polite, friendly, but vigorous debate and disagreement, the lively clash of rival perspectives, not in “agreement” or “coherency.”
Human disagreement is bad and harmful when it occurs without calm or courtesy, when tempers flare and people resort to abuse or violence. (This is what is happening to people who question the global pandemic narratIve. Question the need for social isolation and you will be attacked.)
But amicable disagreement is necessary for real solutions. Our problems have not been caused by a lack of coherency, in Eisenstein’s sense. (This reminds me of Rousseau’s idea of the General Will, which he never could explain and articulate with any precision, despite his brilliance in other respects.). They have been caused by a false and premature consensus, an illusory coherence, a belief that we’ve come to the final solution before we actually have.
So you have Marxists talking to other Marxists, liberals talking to other liberals, Friedmanian or Hayekian libertarians and free market zealots chatting happily with each other, but not to anyone outside their sphere. Whatever the ideology, the tendency is just for most people to converse with their own kind, and dismiss or ignore anyone who doesn’t share their beliefs. Soon – and I’ve done this myself plenty of times – you come to think your own vision of the way things are is the only true one, because you cease to talk with or read anyone who isn’t already on the same wavelength as you.
Eisenstein has a tendency to write as if a consensus already exists in situations where it actually doesn’t. He’s written approvingly of Derrick Jensen and John Zerzan, but these two are hugely controversial figures even in anarchist circles. I’ve read absolutely brutal takedowns of Zerzan written by other left wing anarchists and socialists. If Zerzan inspires that much hostility even among anarchists, what about among other varieties of leftist thinker? What about amongst people who are not left wing politically in the first place? Eisenstein is so much in favor of “consensus” and “coherency” he sees it even where it clearly is not there. He sometimes talks as if Zerzan’s arguments about, and against, civilization, are obviously true, but they are not. I’m definitely not persuaded, and from what I’ve read, it’s obvious that many powerful critiques and rebuttals of Zerzan’s entire oeuvre are out there. The consensus Eisenstein thinks is out there isn’t actually there.
Petrus says
Just as platforms and microphones still exist, many still need Eisenstein just as he needs them. In the age of ranting and an endless search for the real: too many words, too many images. We hope to find refuge, and if not, then to be somehow obliterated… but it never happens, and instead we have to suffer every moment and its contents. Fewer words allow for more presence. The Daodejing is a very short “book,” for Wisdom transmits in brevity. What do words mean in the end? When silence appears, where will you be?
aryne says
Nice article I found it very helpful,thanks for the article I am very interested
Eileen says
Magnificent essay. Thank-you.
In the spirit of “widening our lens”, I cannot help but return again and again to I. Velikovsky’s “Mankind in Amnesia” which suggests that global collective TRAUMA — left unattended, proliferates generation after generation.
Andrew says
Charles,
Please forgive me as I have only just “discovered” you via the Rebel Wisdom YouTube page. How could I have been so ignorant of such a wonderful mind? I ask myself. This essay is majesterial, life-affirming, life-altering stuff, and I salute you. Now, with your permission, I eagerly look forward to consuming your other works in the hope that it enriches me further. Thank you. Andrew
Carla says
Quite a read. This perspective was a bucket of water in my face, an opportunity to reflect a little deeper, an opportunity to try to decipher the subtext on this whole COVID-19 thing. There is so much we are learning from our forced familial isolation. I’ve thought long and hard about what comes after— what happens when this virus is “under control,” do we go back to our previous way of life? I highly doubt it. As you mentioned, 9/11 changed everyone as well as the way we think about terrorism. I’m not an alarmist, in fact, I’m quite a cynical person, but I find those who mire in conspiracy theories are well worth, at least, listening to because quite often what they fear is happening, is indeed happening – just under the surface. I used to think it was silly to see images of Chinese people walking around in face masks because of the incredibly heavy pollution in Beijing and other major Chinese cities; now that reality is here in the U.S. and there is no pollution. Will we go back to shaking hands? Many will, however I won’t, then again I’m a bit of a germaphobe. It always galled me to realize how many people simply don’t wash their hands. Hand washing, however simple, is a huge guard against the spread of virus, but many still don’t/won’t practice it. Technology has come far enough that we really don’t need to venture out of our homes. Food and water can be delivered, internet services and phones allow us to talk face-to-face with anyone we wish, and yes, an online education, to some, is actually very commonplace for many. COVID has forced us to become even more distant from each other, but that was already happening because of our collective addiction to our smart-phones. My simple mind tells me a lot of the virus spreading could be stopped if we washed our hands more, if we cooked more of our meals at home and perhaps looked closer at international travel and all those direct flights and, of course, stopped messing with other species, thinking they are ours to do with what we please. I am one of those who believes we are reopening our cities too soon. I think many have now become used to hearing the word Coronavirus and I fear many will think, “the government has a handle on this.” Nothing could be further from the truth. I am one who believes that the Trump Administration is just anxious to get the economy moving again, I can certainly understand its importance, but at what cost? I think Governors are acting in haste. There are no simple answers here. However, after reading an article in USA Today titled, “COVID-19 Data Chief Ousted as Scientists Worry,” that article scared me. Are we delving deeper, much deeper into censorship in order to relax the fear of the virus, to lessen its hold so that we become desensitized to it emotionally? I hope not. I can certainly stay up-to-date on the latest information about COVID, but how much of it is censored or fake? All I can really do is take a wait-and-see attitude. A very engaging article indeed.
Myles says
Great article. My one point of contention however is with UBI. Printing currency and handing it out discourages productivity while simultaneously erroding that currency’s purchasing power via the expansion of the currency supply (the very definition of inflation). This is a double whammy because a nation’s currency supply is the MEASURE of it’s total goods and services. You’d have goods and services declining while simultaneously expanding the currency supply. What happens when you have limited supply but tons of cash floating around? Rising prices. Currency is a MEASURE, it is not wealth. You cannot increase prosperity by increasing a unit of measurement.
Now, let’s say people miraculously remain productive while receiving free money (“I’m going to work at McDonald’s even though I don’t have to”). If everyone suddenly has an extra 2k/month what will happen to the cost of goods and what will happen to wages? The cost of goods would go up to the point that UBI would be wiped out by inflation. Wages would also plummet because employers don’t need to cover all your expenses. Governments would eventually have to jack up UBI payments to 4k, 8k, 20k, 100k, 1m a month. Prices would keep rising and the nation’s currency would eventually have no purchasing power whatsoever. This is basic economics.
In either of these scenarios, UBI would end in complete economic disaster and totalarian controls. Governments would be left with no choice but to mandate jobs at farms, mines and factories because productivity would plument to the point of food shortages and UBI would eventually be your compensation. In the end we’d all be living something closely resembling the Soviet Union with rampant poverty and an authoritarian government.
Chad Parks says
Thanks Charles.
Chad
Chris says
The more I come back to this essay, the more irritated I get at what I consider to be Eisenstein’s dishonest mode of argumentation, his relentless resort to logical fallacies, his stubborn refusal to ever, here or anywhere else, honestly engage with negative appraisals of his work. I have never once seen Eisenstein take on board any serious criticism of his ideas. It appears that he simply never bothers to read any naysayers, or if he does, he arrogantly dismisses them as insufficiently enlightened. They are just caught up in The obsolete Old Stories, whereas Eisenstein has a vision of “the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible,” therefore he can be excused for disregarding all objections to his vision of inevitable and effortless utopia.
He has an almost pathological need for some kind of forced, strained, treacly optimism, as if somehow people can’t accomplish anything if it isn’t always sunshine and rainbows in their eyes. I’m astounded by the amount of praise this essay has received, given its grotesque refusal to honestly deal with the full enormity of the totalitarian measures imposed upon the population of the entire world. It is increasingly obvious that there simply IS no pandemic, that the legacy media can conjure whatever it wants to out of thin air. This is Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction all over again, just on a much larger scale. Anyone who doesn’t go along with the pandemic narrative is simply censored out of existence. How can Eisenstein read this as “humanity united in a common cause,” as if these lockdowns were something we all agreed to, when there simply is no such agreement – Eisenstein’s own friend Kelly Brogan is well aware of German New Medicine, since she tweeted about it, and was promptly vilified and character assassinated as a pseudo-scientific crackpot by members of the MSM. No honest discussion of the authentically scientific, authentically empirical and eminently testable GNM paradigm is anywhere allowed to be aired. Brogan was a a target of de facto censorship.
As commenter Shane Kenyon correctly observed, “the response to COVID is not a collective act. It is an imposed regime executed by those in authority.” Eisenstein’s treacly vision of united humanity is yet another example of his refusal to honestly grapple with the darker, more disquieting aspects of human nature and the nature of communication. Unless we as a species start to honestly address the terrifying power of the legacy media to declare by fiat what is true or false, to simply invent “the facts” out of whole cloth, we’re never going to have the smooth transition to a post capitalist utopia Eisenstein envisions. Just as surely as the MSM, with its total dominance of the discourse, led the U.S. into both Iraq wars and the destabilization of the Middle East (because an honest factual debate was never permitted), just as the MSM is the primary blocking agent stopping third party candidates from ever gaining any traction in elections, so is the MSM the primary force preventing the vast majority of people from learning anything about GNM, David Crowe’s brilliant dismantling of the COVID panic, or other alternatives to the distorted, false mainstream model of health and disease. Eisenstein simply sidesteps all the hard questions of how to resolve the problems surrounding information control and filtering that are at the heart of why nothing ever seems to improve when it comes to human health and the health of the entire biosphere of our humble planet.
Laura Fugate says
Thank you SO much!!!!!!!
Mark says
I understand Chris’s frustration above. Our military agenda is driven by half-truths and out right lies, such as he speaks of regarding WMD’s and Iraq. Our Monetary system agenda is driven the same way, resulting in the 1% stealing everything, and now with the Fed appointing BlackRock to buy its “assets” for them, the divide will become too far to close (The Fed’s 6 trillion dollar “asset” sheet is worth nothing – they are buying junk bonds and derivatives that are worthless, thereby allowing corporations to make money and stay afloat, while BlackRock and the Fed will own everything as the Fed exponentially raises its “assets” to unseen heights, keeps interest rates at zero, feeding the money to the rich elite; while the rest of us receive handouts from the corrupt government.) Our medical system agenda is just as corrupt. This “virus” has never been proven. Do your research and reply with a Gold Standard, Double Blind, controlled study that proves that the SARS-2 “virus” causes Covid-19. You cannot, it doesn’t exist. We believe in this virus, just as we believe in HIV causes AIDS – another medical untruth that has never been proven. Again, I plead with you to look this up and see for yourselves. These viruses are not based on Gold Standard science but on hype, propaganda, and outright lies. There are so many fine scientists who know this and you can find their science. If you want a real wake up call, please read: Virus Mania – https://www.amazon.com/Virus-Mania-Continually-Epidemics-Billion-Dollar/dp/1425114679/ref=sxts_b2b_sx_reorder?cv_ct_cx=virus+mania&dchild=1&keywords=virus+mania&pd_rd_i=1425114679&pd_rd_r=c63501ae-4810-4758-9d7a-95f0f5b453cf&pd_rd_w=ALmL9&pd_rd_wg=MNTh8&pf_rd_p=c8578112-5367-4af9-b0d7-8ea3833d7167&pf_rd_r=6TNTJQSER2S0ED3GZJQD&qid=1590623751&sr=1-1-f5ebfd8e-82c1-4b4e-97d5-2aa47aa18b69. It is one book among many good books that provide real investigative analysis and information about the falsehoods of viruses and that medical industry.
Yes, I too would love to hear a rebuttal from Eisenstein. Give us your ideas about the criticism that is being leveled at your work. Your mind is bright and astute and articulate. Please respond to our critiques so we can learn together.
And when the vaccination doctor comes a calling, are you rolling up your sleeve like a good sheep, or are you resisting the authoritarian dictate, demanding consent when it comes to your body, and demanding we know exactly what is in the vaccine – what “virus” is in it? what toxic adjuvants? what DNA? what animal tissue or blood or genetic material? and what gold standard science that proves the vaccine is safe? Again, look up the many instances when vaccines killed many people before being taken down as unsafe.
We must not be blinded by the light side, the positive, the polarity of goodness – we must stay in the center and see what is occurring for the such-ness that it is.
kamir bouchareb st says
good article
TITA says
Thank you very much for the information!
http://virtuelcampus.univ-msila.dz/inst-gtu/
kamir bouchareb st says
thanks for the last information
samiha_FS says
Thank you very much
amel fs says
This is one of the best articles I’ve read.
ahlam st says
Very good stuff, Many thanks
ahlam st says
Very good stuff, Many thanks
http://virtuelcampus.univ-msila.dz/factech/
samiha_FS says
Thanks for all the research paper it was very informative
soundos says
thanks for sharing.
kamir bouchareb st says
good article
samiha_FS says
merci
amel fs says
Valuable postings. Many thanks . .
Viv says
All that makes sense to me now, amidst the utter chaos, is my intuition and instinct and what they tell me and what they receive. They are what guide me now. Perhaps they’re enough, but I don’t know.
I have to admit I had let myself get caught up in the fear of being trapped by the totalitarian state my country (UK) seems to be heading for and a future of all that that would entail. I slept like a condemned man every night, and sometimes not at all, for what seemed an unbearable amount of time. Pure torture, and nobody to talk with about it. I’m sure I’m not the only one that has or is experiencing this. If I remained there though I just wouldn’t have survived very long, how could I.
I’m at the tail end of my time here and all I want is to be is as alive as I possibly can and, when it’s my turn, to die well.
I don’t need to know how intuition or instinct work. For me no belief, faith or even trust is nesessary, and I don’t have to perform any mantra or ritual for them to be. This is where I get to that which is beyond words. I receive what Charles, or anyone, writes always intuitively. I may not always understand intellectually but it doesn’t seem to matter.
The only to the bone thing I can truly say “I know” is, all is connected.
Charles says “I don’t really know what is happening. I don’t see how anyone can, amidst the seething farrago of news, fake news, rumors, suppressed information, conspiracy theories, propaganda, and politicized narratives that fill the Internet”.
I’m there too.
keram says
Excellent essay! Thanks!
Could you please redo the PDF version so that the links are alive and upload the file again?
Thanks!
kamir bouchareb st says
very good
kamir bouchareb st says
nice topic
kamir bouchareb st says
thanks for this
Betsy Johnson says
You say: “And on a darker note, what among the things that are being taken away right now – civil liberties, freedom of assembly, sovereignty over our bodies, in-person gatherings, hugs, handshakes, and public life – might we need to exert intentional political and personal will to restore?”
I say: Your essay was posted in April, so I assume this is not a reference to the recent protests and the reaction of the authorities to them. When there’s a pandemic, it’s not that civil liberties are “taken away”–it’s that health measures are imposed, to save the lives of others.
We have to make a choice. Do we want to die? Kill our neighbors? Or do we want to restrict our behavior for awhile as other more enlightened countries have done to control this pandemic. And then open up again.
You say: “Lest we institutionalize distancing and reengineer society around it, let us be aware of what choice we are making and why.”
Any choice we are making regarding Covid is TEMPORARY and rational. Again, hugs will not disappear forever. They haven’t even disappeared today. The AARP has some advice about how to hug responsibly–if you want to hug your grandchildren. A little creativity is required.
You say: “A frightened public accepts abridgments of civil liberties that are otherwise hard to justify, such as the tracking of everyone’s movements at all times, forcible medical treatment, involuntary quarantine, restrictions on travel and the freedom of assembly, censorship of what the authorities deem to be disinformation, suspension of habeas corpus, and military policing of civilians.”
I say: Testing and tracing is absolutely essential if we want to get rid of the Coronavirus and prevent DEATH. Other democracies have done this–So. Korea, Italy, New Zealand, German, to name a few. An insistence on the right to infect other people demonstrates a warped sense of freedom. I’m not sure what you mean by “forcible medical treatment.” Do you mean that people need to be vaccinated to protect everyone else?
There are parts of this essay I agree with, but your overall sense of outrage about measures that must be taken for the health and happiness of vulnerable people is a problem for me.
Chris says
“I say: Your essay was posted in April, so I assume this is not a reference to the recent protests and the reaction of the authorities to them. When there’s a pandemic, it’s not that civil liberties are “taken away”–it’s that health measures are imposed, to save the lives of others.”
Complete nonsense. There is no credible scientific evidence whatsoever that these draconian measures are “saving lives.” I suggest you learn how to begin to think and evaluate evidence, not just parrot whatever nonsensical drivel you imbibed passively from staring at the idiot box for too long.
It has long been known that the PCR COVID test is utterly unreliable, huge numbers of false positives are generated because it can’t detect the presence of a new virus, despite that false claim being repeated over and over again. A good place to start deprogramming yourself is here:
https://uncoverdc.com/2020/04/07/was-the-covid-19-test-meant-to-detect-a-virus/
Kary Mullis invented PCR technology. Kary Mullis insisted it couldn’t possibly be used as a reliable diagnostic measure. Kary Mullis was correct. That’s the reason why we have this supposed pandemic. Because a piece of technology that cannot legitimately be used to diagnosis illness is being so used.
Furthermore, there is absolutely no scientific “consensus” about a pandemic ravaging the world, far from it. It’s just that the shameless mainstream media refuses to report the truth. Read the Off Guardian for accurate coverage, including interviews with the numerous epidemiologists who dissent from the fear porn narrative.
Why the hell do you think they are now claiming that most cases of COVID are asymptomatic? Asymtomatic meaning the person who tested positive is healthy and shows no signs of being sick. Simple. This is how they handle their cognitive dissonance instead of confronting the truth that the PCR test – which is the whole basis of this paranoia and hysteria – is useless as a diagnostic tool. How can somebody test positive yet show no symptoms? Simple. We just insist that COVID is generally asymptomatic. But this is an absurdity. If someone is sick, they have symptoms. If they have no symptoms, they aren’t sick. Our authorities (who have a vested interest in COVID being real – all of Big Pharma plus the Gates Foundation, the main funder of the WHO – are fanatical promoters of vaccines and anti-viral drugs) are twisting themselves into pretzels instead of acknowledging their blunder.
“We have to make a choice. Do we want to die? Kill our neighbors? Or do we want to restrict our behavior for awhile as other more enlightened countries have done to control this pandemic. And then open up again.”
You mean more enlightened countries like Belarus, Vietnam, Sweden, or various African nations that did minimal or no lockdown measures and yet suffered no uptick in their overall monthly mortality rates? How is that possible? Simple. The COVID deaths are an illusion. They’re a consequence of the testing. The more you test, the more positives you get. On top of that, hospitals have been encouraged to assume COVID even in the absence of a test – and receive more funding the more COVID numbers they report. This is a recipe for massive number inflation.
“We have to make a choice. Do we want to die? Kill our neighbors? Or do we want to restrict our behavior for awhile as other more enlightened countries have done to control this pandemic. And then open up again..”
Except that many of our ruling elites – both politicians and rich “benefactors” like Bill Gates – have already clearly indicated they DON’T want a return to normal. They want a cashless society, a digital economy, mandatory regular vaccination of everyone alive (and there is a wealth of scientific evidence available that vaccines can be dangerous and harmful to the health), a social credit system like China’s (which is objectively speaking totalitarian in nature), and have suggested most of the small businesses wiped out by the Lockdown won’t be coming back. They won’t receive enough compensation to reopen. They are permanently gone. This of course, means yet another transfer of power towards big business and away from small business, towards the leviathan state and away from local and regional political power, more government and corporate control and less community, a growing digital economy and the shrinking of real face to face interaction to nil. And they can always shut down the world whenever they want by declaring another outbreak whenever they want. So your point is literally complete nonsense.
There is another mounting danger you seem oblivious to. The entire world economy, including the food supply chains, is dependent on oil. But we’ve already reached and long passed peak oil. But meanwhile, local and regional farms everywhere are being wiped out and crushed under the heels of Monsanto. In other words, Monsanto is striving to control the entire world’s food supply. This is a recipe for disaster and famines and mass starvation. This COVID hysteria, however, is pushing us away from what we dearly need, away from the detransition movement, away from transition towns and back into the arms of Big Brother, back into the arms of the centralized Daddy State, who now seeks an unprecedented level of social control that is downright totalitarian, inarguably so.
“I say: Testing and tracing is absolutely essential if we want to get rid of the Coronavirus and prevent DEATH. Other democracies have done this–So. Korea, Italy, New Zealand, German, to name a few. An insistence on the right to infect other people demonstrates a warped sense of freedom. I’m not sure what you mean by “forcible medical treatment.” Do you mean that people need to be vaccinated to protect everyone else?”
It doesn’t matter what you say. You think wrong. The science behind COVID fails every minimal test to be considered authentic science, therefore any lockdown measures stemming from this woefully inadequate science are necessarily unjust and unjustifiable. The “science” behind vaccination is also garbage, which you would know if you did any serious research into this instead of gullibly swallowing Big Pharma propaganda fed to you by the “journalists” and “trusted scientists” whose entire salaries are paid for by Big Pharma.
Unfortunately, the usually astute Eisenstein took a rather noncommittal, wishy washy position in his Coronation and Conspiracy Myth essays, and ended up saying not much of substance. But he is still correct to distrust the paranoid control freak measures imposed on us.
Ahlam says
I like the efforts you have put in this, thankyou for all the great posts
Alan says
Great article, Charles! I will need some time to digest it, but great article.
kamir bouchareb st says
very
samiha_FS says
I like the efforts you have put in this, thankyou for all the great posts
Candy says
How this whole, extremely long essay, can be written without addressing the problem of animal agriculture and other non human exploitation, amazes me. The last couple of paragraphs are interesting and it’s good to be reminded of a few things we already know.
kamir bouchareb st says
good article
kamir bouchareb st says
nice thank you
riad says
très bien
REBAI says
Je suis étonné de voir comment tout cet essai extrêmement long peut être écrit sans aborder le problème de l’agriculture animale et d’autres exploitations non humaines. Les deux derniers paragraphes sont intéressants et il est bon de se rappeler certaines choses que nous savons déjà.
REBAI says
thank you for all information you share
Kristin says
I will read this again and again. You are very articulate in your writing. It’s beautiful, hopeful and real. What amazing points I did not consider before reading this.
Thank you so much
BDBinc says
I respectfully disagree as to be united in ignorance and fear are not optimum for growth. It hints at a regressive stage for human beings. The climate has always been changing, climate drivers are the Sun, oceans and water vapour ( not mans emissions of C02). The climate change movement and covid ( another UN pandemic that wasn’t) it clearly shows how science is now a consensu$ in the service of a political agenda.
https://notpublicaddress.wordpress.com/2020/10/01/turbulence-and-transconsciousness/
Jonathan says
Considering all that has happened since November 2020 and how clearly you were wrong about Covid not being a pandemic, are you also willing to reassess your certainty that global warming isn’t a man-made issue and a true crisis?
M ISMAEEL BROTHERS says
Thanks for posting this article about The Coronation, keep it up you are doing good work.
M ISMAEEL BROTHERS
linda drew says
Nearing the end of April, official statistics say that about 150,000 people have died from Covid-19. we should be thinking about the life of those alive and well, above the ONE THOUGHT THAT ANY OF US MIGHT DIE!!!!! FOR WHATEVER REASON. THINK OF LIFE, NOT ”WE MIGHT DIE”
MY EXISTENCE IS I HAVE A SEVERE FEAR OF COVID RULES MAN IN MI6. HE PLANNED RAPE AND TRAFFICKING FOR MANY CITIZENS. WHOEVER HE CAN GET THIS FOR. HE HAS BROUGHT MANY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS IN TO BE HIS SLAVES. HE WANTS SOME GOING OUT OF THE COUNTRY AS WELL. FOR HIS TRAFFICKING WORLD.
MANY ARE ALREADY IN WRONG HANDS, HIS WITH HIS ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. HE SEPARATED CHILDREN FROM PARENTS BY ORDER OF TRUMP AS WELL FOR ILLEGALS IN UK.
WITH ALL MY SHOUTING AGAINST HIM I WOULD BE TORTURED FOR 175 YEARS LIKE ASSANGE IN WRONG HANDS.
what is the suggestion how to see my grandchildren at guiseley who are in slavery of mi6 and locked up in their home at the behest of mi6 and they can’t VISIT THEIR FAMILY OUTSIDE GUISELEY BECAUSE OF HIS RULES. EXTINCTION REBELLION WON AGAINST MI6 IN COURT NOV 19 BUT HE IGNORED THEM ANYWAY AND BROUGHT IN DON’T MIX RULES FOR MY FAMILY AND EVERYBODY ELSES.
linda drew says
MI6 has an american partner in belfast who wants monarchy to be become SHAREHOLDERS OF US CORP. Companies house
info 1.12.2020 struck this company off the register. Therefore mi6 shoved us all back into lockdown and renewed lockdown after it was supposed to END ON 2.12.2020. It was renewed because mi6 did not get his revenge on the uk by getting rid of the monarchy to US corp. Shareholders of that company are media and all their operatives which he wanted transferring to US corp.
Who does the registrar of companies work for then? the country? the british crown? the monarchy don’t own crown estates. If phillip wanted to do anything he had to persuade them. In return for what? some stuff that mi6 wanted obviously. mi6 is the biggest traitor in this country and to this country (all for america, eu and mi6). We need him out of this country!!!!! dead or alive for the purpose of RESCUING THE UK.
Julian O'Neill says
“Covid-19 is like a rehab intervention that breaks the addictive hold of normality. To interrupt a habit is to make it visible; it is to turn it from a compulsion to a choice. When the crisis subsides, we might have occasion to ask whether we want to return to normal, or whether there might be something we’ve seen during this break in the routines that we want to bring into the future. We might ask, after so many have lost their jobs, whether all of them are the jobs the world most needs, and whether our labor and creativity would be better applied elsewhere. “mmmI knew you were a dmbfk bfore, but now for anyone with any sense if is crystal clear you are the typical leftard, ‘liberal’ who just has not got A clue. you, from your cushy position of going around spouting crp judge people livelihoods are maybe not what the world needs….? do I need you and your vacuous empty words and your smiley face…? N. O. No! Of what use is what you do?? You have not any insight what is actually going on. I would sooner someone’s little business was open than reading your …it is not even limited hangout, it is plain ignore-ant misleading rambling. The world doesn’t need YOU!
Chris says
Good points, Julian. Eisenstein is a pretentious, patronizing New Age blowhard, and I say that as a former fan who is now deeply embarrassed and ashamed to have wasted so much money and time poring over Eisenstein’s preening self-regarding bilge! Ah, the folly of youth!
Now I know better. Now that I’ve actually read most of the great philosophers and thinkers in the western tradition, I realize that Eisenstein has little meaningful to say. He’s just a rambling, clueless, pretentious New Age idiot of the worst sort, so convinced that he’s deeper and wiser and more of a genius than anyone else and so convinced that his every half-assed “Deep thought” is like manna dropped from heaven. The man is a total narcissist and a third rate thinker at best.
Jonathan says
I don’t think you understood him correctly Julian.
Mr. Eisenstein has never said that people don’t need to make a living, or that they don’t need to do work in some form. He’s asking whether those particular jobs were truly “essential”, seeing as how the loss are many particular “non-essential” jobs doesn’t actually hold society back in any significant way. Far too many jobs today are designed to make profit for wealthy people rather than provide any benefit for the public or the workers, and far too many people today are stuck in work they despise, but their options are limited due to the economic structure. The pandemic has already helped millions to realize that they’re no longer willing to work jobs they hate for pay that barely keeps them afloat. Mr. Eisenstein is simply acknowledging that fact.
Chris says
Julian did not “misunderstand” Eisenstein, Eisenstein was just being his usual patronizing self, offering treacly, saccharine feel good nonsense in lieu of substance. Eisenstein thinks he knows better than anyone else what people really need. He is a total narcissist and maybe even a solipsist.
The jobs that were eliminated by the fake pandemic were smaller businesses and independent businesses, and the ones that were untouched were the soulless corporate jobs you deplore. In no way did the fake pandemic – or Eisenstein’s treacly, vacuous exposition – help people in the ways you’re saying. Small business was devastated and corporations were bolstered and strengthened – the exact opposite of what you are suggesting happened.
Jonathan says
Mr. Eisenstein, I am an enormous fan of Sacred Economics and have recommended it to countless people. So I write this with real concern.
You drop studies making statements like “a hundred times current confirmed cases (which would mean a CFR of less than 0.1%)” and “a very recent study using an antibody test found that cases in Santa Clara, CA have been underreported by a factor of 50-85.” Those studies were already flagged by other researchers as suspect at the time, making conclusions that simply couldn’t be supported with their methodology. Now with the benefit of hindsight we of course see that they were enormously incorrect. If they were right then herd immunity would already have been reached a year ago, instead we’ve had two more massive surges with far more deaths than were predicted by those authors, and even still the epidemic continues to hit the unvaccinated minority very heavily.
Two things concern me about this.
First, what led you to post those studies and not others that critiqued them or predicted far worse outcomes (outcomes that have now come to pass)? Are you posting studies based on the quality of the research or based on the fact that they came to a conclusion which you thought helped your point? When we post studies based on their conclusions rather than based on the strength of the study, we put ourselves into a very bad place.
Second, have you corrected yourself at a later date and pointed out that those studies were clearly wrong? If we had been missing 50-100x as many cases as we were finding, then the entire American population would already have been infected by July or August 2020. At this point with 45 million confirmed cases and nearly 200 million vaccinated persons, we are still dealing with over 100,000 new cases a day, proving that we couldn’t really be missing many cases at all if we still have enough unexposed people for the virus to continue to spread so freely. Even “5x as many cases were not caught” is untenable, anything more than 2x looks unlikely. 45 million confirmed cases now, and a death rate that continues to hover stubbornly around 1.6%. So having posted that information at one point with strong implications that you thought it may be correct, have you posted again to correct that misimpression?
And has that experience changed at all which studies you put the most credence in and choose to “signal-boost”?
People are still linking this essay more than a year later. For their sake, I hope you can clarify.